I’m tired. This isn’t going to be a put together post because I honestly don’t have the energy to write anything cohesive. I’m just so tired and disheartened, and more tired and more disheartened. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been learning more about myself as a person of color and how other people of color, specifically women, are treated in our society. While in college I had the privilege of being surrounded by people of color, to be immersed in my culture, but now that I’m back home in my white suburban hometown, I’m so removed from my people that it’s stifling. I went from being in a class with a powerful, intelligent Native Hawaiian woman, having her explain the complexities of my culture, of my people, of my history, to being here, where people equate cheap grass skirts and tiki print as “Hawaiian” when it could not be any further from it.
So I look for inspiration, to creators, women who are independent and strong and hardworking and what do I find? Nothing but pale skin and privilege. Turn on the radio, white, look up artwork, white, watching TV, white, they’re everywhere! I scroll through tumblr and see page after page of white creators. I see people white-washing and silencing Frida Kahlo. I see buttons and pins with phrases like “Not Your Babe” and pictures from shows like Twin Peaks, My So-Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, The Virgin Suicides, American Beauty, the list goes on. All these white people (mostly women from what I have personally seen), finding such inspiration in these phrases and shows and you know what I see, NOTHING. You know why? I’m not in these shows. Where am I?
When I was younger I was so excited when Lilo and Stitch came out. People used to call me Lilo because I looked just like her. I had the long black-brown hair, the brown skin, the big belly. I remember being so happy to find someone who looked just like me, someone who was strong and independent and around my age. So imagine my dismay when I discovered that Lilo was voiced by a little white girl. That the Lilo I grew up idolizing wasn’t voiced by a young girl from Hawai’i but a young white girl from Las Vegas. White Hollywood wouldn’t even let a brown animated character be voiced by an actual brown person.
And itʻs never gotten any easier. It’s 2015 and a film called Aloha just came out and who’s cast as a part-Hawaiian, part-Chinese woman? Emma Stone, a white woman. And what’s worse the film, which evokes a word very dear to the Hawaiian people, chronicles the lives of military men and woman. What a slap in the face of the Hawaiian people! A people whose land was illegally taken and occupied by the United States military and continues to be occupied till this day. How fucking dare they do that to us!
Well shit, I’m getting off topic now. I’m just so tired of struggling to find someone that looks like me. Why can’t the fucking media just stop whitewashing everything? I know the answer, they have to establish their domain over people of color. They have to make sure we’re self-hating and willing to dance on command. They need to make sure women of color are submissive and docile, and men of color are incarcerated. And most of all they have to make sure our experiences, our stories, our cultures, never see the light of day. God forbid we learn about our cultures in history class, that would make us far too dangerous for the status quo.
I just want to leave you with this. Last year I was sitting in my Hawaiian Mythology class at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, listening to Lilikala Kameʻeleihiwa lecture and as Iʻm taking notes she says “Hawaiian are known for our intelligence.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I dropped my pen and looked up to the front of the class. I could feel tears welling in my eyes as I realized that in the 21 years I had been alive, no one had ever told me that my people were intelligent. When I called my mom to tell her what I learned in class she reacted the same way. I could hear her smiling over the phone. To her, a woman who was FORBIDDEN from speaking Hawaiian in school, FORBIDDEN from learning about her people, she finally heard someone tell her that she is intelligent, that her people are intelligent, that weʻre so much more than shitty whitewashed luaus and plastic leis.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Art Supplies!!!
Not only is this watercolor set travel sized, it also comes with a pallet, a finger ring, and a portable water brush. And that's not even the best part, you can grab this set for less than $21. I know, mind blowing. I haven't actually tested out the colors to see the pigmentation, nor have I tested the water brush to see if it works as well as the brush set I have (it should since my brush set is pretty old and very well loved). The only complaint that I have is that when I opened the set, I noticed that some of the watercolors were literally popping out of their holders, like the glue used to keep them down was old or something. Nothing I can't handle myself.
To go along with my watercolor kit, I picked up a new sketchbook. I don't know about you, but I seem unable to find a good sketchbook that can handle wet media. I can't tell you how many times I've bought a sketchbook with the intent of using watercolors in it, only to be let down by low quality paper. So this time I did my research and picked up the Pen and Ink 3.5x5.5 Heavy Weight Blank Sketchbook.
I can't really give too much information about this product because I haven't tried out the paper yet, but I ADORE the look and feel of the sketchbook. Also, I believe it's supposed to lie flat once it's been broken in so I'll update y'all on that. Oh the price for this sketchbook was around $8, which I think is a fair price for the size and amount of pages included (96-pages).
Lastly, I bought another 6-pack of my all-time favorite fine line pens. I say another because this will be my third repurchase of this product. Yes, I am talking about the Black Micron Fine Liner Pens.
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| THE BEST BLACK LINER PENS EVER!!! |
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| Newly purchased pens on the left. Greatly loved pens on the right. I can't get enough! |
These pens are my holy grail purchase. I personally use them for doodling. I'll post some pictures of my work below to give you a better idea of how I use them. Their dark pigment and smooth lines make them perfect for this. However, I can't stand to use them for writing. I don't like the drag they have when I'm trying to write fast, it makes it hard to write. I see these used mostly for precision so that makes sense that they wouldn't be a useful writing tool. The six-pack retails for around $9.50. If you have a Joanns or Michaels around you I would suggest buying them there. They usually have a 50% off coupon. The price comes out to a just a little under $9.50, but you get your pack instantly and don't have to pay for shipping, which is nice.
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| Original Work done with Micron Fine Liner Pens & Sharpies |
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| Work in progress. Used Micron Fine Liner Pens and Fine Line Sharpies |
I can't tell you how thrilled I am with my purchase. I'm still waiting on a 3-Pack of Pentel Water brushes to come in so expect another art post when those arrive.
'Til next time,
X
Monday, July 6, 2015
Meet Baby Extraterrestrial Cyborg
Today I woke up early to make my mom’s breakfast and lunch and decided, after a nice hot cup of green tea mixed with honey, that I would be a productive member of society. I decided I would clean my room and fix up my desk and finally finish my ATC (artist trading card). Well, all that went out of the window when I found this.
Yes, I have a secret false book and yes that's a floppy disk from the early 2000s, but don’t get too excited. My mom bought the 'book' for me so at any time she could rummage through it and find the EXTREMELY EMBARRASSING collection of letters, rants, random thoughts and ripped out journal entries that lay within its beautiful wooden exterior.
Most of the things I found were from middle school to high school and oh my lord I cannot believe the person that lay within these pages. Don’t believe me? I took the liberty of pulling some choice quotes from a six page Omegle chat log I decided was important enough to print and add into this collection of papers.
Stranger: hahaha ur so cute
Me: Thank you
Stranger: yeah
Me: i think ur just saying that cuz im young
Stranger: no mayn
Stranger: i don't give a fuck
Stranger: u sound cute so i said so
Stranger: im not hitting on you
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Me: if you were hitting on me that would be awkward
Stranger: yeah
Stranger: that's why i din't get naught with you
Me: i would have left if you did
Stranger: hahahhahah got it mayn
Stranger: ut a decent and beauti ful gal
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Stranger: don't ever fuck ur rep by sleeping with random guys
Me: i dont plan to
Stranger: yea
Stranger: i know
Stranger: but baby sometimes it happens
Me: not to me im very goal oriented
Stranger: ppl gete horny n end up with nasty things
End of conversation
(Note by me)
My internet disconnected...
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Disgusted yet? Because I sure as fuck am. Who is this sad, obviously self-conscious girl? Who the hell is that? I mean for one, the guy is a prick, plain and simple. Two, I obviously have no confidence in myself whatsoever, and three, the slut shaming that I am complicit in is just horrible. And what’s scary is that not much has changed. I’ve still never been on a date, never kissed another person (romantically), had sex, or smoked weed and this is three years later. Although, I have a feeling that I wasn’t actually 18 when I had this conversation because I had the bad habit of claiming that I was older than I was so men would talk to me.
Pathetic right? Well, that’s what I thought when I first read it. I wished that I could travel back in time and slap some sense into that girl typing to this predator. But, then I realized I was bred by society and ate its propaganda up like it was a delicious loaf of freshly baked bread. I was supposed to be modest, to lie about my age, my weight, to distance myself from girls who were “less pure” than me, to feel more superior than those girls, and most importantly, I was supposed to be flattered that a man, no matter his age, found me attractive.
GOD DAMN DID I SIP THE KOOLAID OR WHAT? I mean, I was a cookie cutter cut out of the perfect teenage girl, the little angel with a superiority complex, and where did that get me. At 15, I hated my body. At 16, I went on a strict diet, eating less than 1200 calories while working out for an hour and a half every day at after school tennis practice. At 17, I calculated the exact day it would take me to lose 50 pounds and finally be the size that I wanted. I translated that date into roman numerals and wrote it out in beautiful script so that when that day came I could have it permanently tattooed on my body. I would wear it as a badge of honor and when people inevitably asked me “how I did it,” I would shrug and lie through my teeth, “It just came off. I didn’t do anything.” Because ‘real women’ didn’t have to diet to have good bodies, they were born with them. By 18, I hated taking pictures of myself, hated looking at myself in the mirror, hated everything about the way I looked. I told myself no boy would want to date me because I didn’t look right, and ignored the strong feelings I had for the girl I could hardly keep my eyes off of in my Algebra 2 class, and then later in my Statistics class. The girl who called me funny and beautiful and made me feel like I could never catch my breath.
That’s who baby Extraterrestrial Cyborg was. She didn’t fit in. She was fat and brown and hairy and strong-willed and young and confused about her sexuality and perfect. She stood out in a way she wouldn’t appreciate until much later. She made people uncomfortable, forced them outside of their narrow-minded idea of who a teenage cis girl is supposed to be. I appreciate her so much for that. If she didn’t go through that awful, self-hatred, I would never be the woman I am today. Don’t get me wrong, I still carry a lot of baggage from my younger days, in truth it’s hard not too because the propaganda never ends. I still struggle with the idea that I need to perform for cis men, that I need to carry myself in a way that makes me seem desirable, that I need to hide certain aspects of my personality or outright lie about who I am, in order to garner their attention. While I think it’s getting easier, mostly due to my realization that I am not hetero by any means, it’s still something I am constantly having to deal with.
If you’re reading this and you’re feeling any of these thoughts, I really hope this speaks to you. I won’t patronize you by saying “it gets better” because I’m not in a position to make that statement. What I will say is you will change, adapt, and your past self will become a stranger to your present self. I think that’s the way we work. I hope your life is filled with enough struggles and hardships and pressure to turn you into the lovely gems you are destined to be. And when we get there, I hope we can all come together and say we made. We did it. This is us and we’re not going anywhere.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Film Review: Fire Walk With Me
Release Year: 1992
Genre: Horror, mystery, thriller
Writers: Davin Lynch, Richard Engels, Mark Frost
I reserved Fire Walk With Me after a three week Twin Peaks marathon with my mom. I was particularly interested in watching this film because, for the first time in the Twin Peaks franchise, Laura Palmer would be alive and ready to tell the story of her short-lived life. Or at least I thought she would. While Laura was, in fact, alive, I found myself extremely disappointed. Yes the film remained true to its tv start, the creepy just off key jazz music was there, the horrible acting was there, even the over the top teenage angst was there. However, what wasn’t there was Laura’s voice. She wasn’t telling her story, she wasn’t claiming her narrative. She was placed in the backseat, yet again.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the melodrama in the film. The unmistakable “soap-opera-esque” vibe running in and out of the dialouge. I think this is one of the reasons for the series’ cult following. While it covers serious topics such as rape, incest, and murder, the film, and franchise in general, never takes itself too seriously. In the moments when Laura deals with these serious issues, Sheryl Lee delivers thoroughly overacted performance that could be ripped directly from your mother’s favorite soap opera star. The result is this eerie mix of the macabre and the absurd that I’m a little unsure how to handle.
My main problem with this film is its point-of-view. Throughout the Twin Peaks television series, the audience gets to know Laura Palmer through the residents of Twin Peaks. Laura was brave, strong-willed, and kind in some moments, and dismissive, cruel and self-destructive in others. The mystery of Laura Palmer is a large part of the appeal of the series. After all, ‘who killed Laura Palmer’ is the tagline of the show. While the audience learned of the killer in the series, the mystery of Laura still evades us. Fire Walk With Me presented Lynch with the perfect opportunity to provide an answer to Laura through her personal narrative, to give her a voice in her own story. Instead, the film is filled with gratuitous scenes that focus solely on Laura’s sexual exploits. By no means are these moments untouchable, Laura Palmer’s Secret Diary, written by Jennifer Lynch, revolves around Laura’s sexual experiences. However, Fire Walk With Me feels very voyeuristic and at moments, violating.
After reading Laura Palmer’s Secret Diary, I can’t help but feel enraged. Here’s a girl whose whole life has been a string of violating sexual experiences, a victim of rape and sexual assault at twelve who decides to become all the things that older men and women want her to be. Roles that range from the mother, the virgin, the high school slut, the little girl, the list goes on. Her life is a story of survival, of ultimate adaptation, of extreme strength and courage, yet the film chooses to ignore that narrative for a “sexier” version of Laura Palmer. Laura Palmer as drug addict, Laura Palmer as prostitute, Laura Palmer as unrepentant accomplice to murder. She’s still forced to put on a show for us. She cannot be who she truly was, a teenaged girl who, due to the circumstances of her life, was forced to become her worst nightmare in order to survive. A girl who sought out drugs as a way to numb herself to the horrors of her life. A girl who was truly living in a horror story of proportions few would understand.
Why Lynch chose this image of Laura is a question I can’t seem to answer. Why would he do such a disservice to the woman who garnered him so many followers? Why? Part of me reaches for the obvious and readily available answer, sexism. It’s littered everywhere. Who is at the receiving end of almost all the violence in this franchise? Women. Theresa. Ronnette. Maddy. Annie. Audrey. Shelly. The list continues. When you think about it, Nadine and Josie are the only female characters that inflict any damage on men and both were framed to be heartless (Nadine was shown mistreating Ed, and Josie was painted to be a black widow instead of focusing on her past as a victim of sexual abuse and prostitution.)Maybe I’m reaching? Maybe Lynch meant to explain more about Laura as the series progressed but never got the chance to? Who knows? What I can suggest is to read Laura Palmer’s Secret Diary. The diary shows a more complete version of Laura, a version curated by Laura herself. (And surprise, surprise it happens to be written by Jennifer Lynch, a woman). After reading this, I felt such a strong connection to her character. In Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me, Laura hardly feels real, she feels constructed, immaterial, incomplete. But in her diary, Laura comes alive. I can feel her presence in the words. If you want to feel some closure about Laura, read her diary, read her words and stay away from Fire Walk With Me.
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