Why Every Woman Should Be Listening to Banks

It’s been less than 24 hours since Banks released her third album, aptly named III and I have been quickly reminded of the various reasons why I love her and the art she puts into this world.

So, I’m gonna be one of those annoying people who states I loved Banks before she made it big. Her EP London was featured on Zane Lowe’s ‘new and noteworthy’ artist list in 2013 and I fell in love. Her amazing vibrato, synth tones, haunting lyrics and vocal range had me hooked and when her first album Goddess was released in 2014 my love for this new female artist was cemented. Banks’ evolution through her music has genuinely felt like a privilege to witness. She, unlike a lot of alternative pop artists nowadays is NOT a celebrity. From what I’ve seen of interviews she keeps her private life private and doesn’t even give much away about her personality through quirky one-liners, sarcasm, banter with interviewers etc. She shares those parts of her with the ones who know her personally and for me, that was completely refreshing. Little is known about Jillian Rose Banks the woman, but we are invited into her life and art through her music in such a raw way that I’ve not experienced with any other musician.

Goddess was a triumph of an album. It was about a woman scorned, wronged, taken advantage of, abused even, one who loves deeply, a fragile woman and yet possess’ the strength EVERY woman has if she believes in herself hard enough. It was about a flawed woman, one who knows she can be selfish and doesn’t shy away from that (particularly through the lyrics in Someone New and You Should Know Where I’m Coming From.) Goddess had magic woven into both it’s lyrics and sound. It’s one of those albums you listen to and every track is as good and complex as the one before. Much like Billie Eilish, Banks does not create throwaway tracks. Her songs are about complex issues, when you listen to tracks like Goddess, Alibi and Waiting Game, you cry with her because every woman has been through these life experiences. Whether it’s that all-important moment a woman realises her self-worth, puts herself ahead of the person she’s in a relationship with, been hurt and used by someone she loved more than they love her. It’s all there, it’s raw, it’s real and more importantly, it’s beautiful.

Needless to say after listening to Goddess on repeat for several weeks (ok months) and realising what a treasure Banks was as a singer and an artist, I couldn’t wait to see what she did next. Cut to two years later and she released her sophomore album, The Altar. Through The Altar we saw Banks go from a relatively shy young girl who had a huge amount of power inside of her partially realised to a strong, independent woman. The Altar represented both personal experiences to her as well as the female experience as a whole from their relationships to the Earth, post-natal depression, child-birth and various relationship experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly. No longer was she just a woman scorned, she was a woman practically telling men to be wary of her because she too possessed the ability to rise up and to some extent, hurt others as they had hurt her. The Altar was dark, gritty and an exploration of self-confidence, sex and the complexities of human emotions and how they change depending on how many times we experience them and wise up against naivety. The messages in The Altar were clear, loud and unapologetic:

• Boys ain’t shit
• Celebrate your flaws
• Own your sexuality
• Enter each phase of your life unafraid and be in the knowledge that you can handle it

Banks released some absolutely beautiful songs in-between her full length records too. Better is one of my favourite tracks by her because of the sheer emotion she presents while singing through the, what must have been painful lyrics for her where she effectively pines over someone she can’t have because they belong to someone else. Crowded Places was an exclusive track for the final episode of the HBO show ‘Girls’ and is a beautiful yet sad song about anxiety and finding comfort in friends and those around you (perfectly fitting given the nature of that entire episode.) Underdog was a more upbeat track, an ode to someone Banks was dating who saw themselves as an underdog. The song is about building his confidence up, and judging from the songs of III, I’m guessing the relationship didn’t end so well. Again though, it goes to show how relatable Banks is. Women have a habit of building men up and putting them on a pedestal to the point where they end up with so much confidence they feel they no longer need us. A blessing to an extent, as it shows the kindness women possess, but also a curse, as we often place mediocre boys higher than ourselves in life and learn it was a mistake far too late in the game.

While Goddess will always be my favourite album (since you never forget your first love), On July 12th, Banks would release her most varied, fascinating and complex record yet with III. III follows a lot of similar themes brought up in The Altar, sexuality, heartbreak and allowing yourself to fall in love again after experiencing hurt and loss. Gimme is a sex positive anthem, it’s essentially saying “hey, i’m a strong, sexy woman, I’ve been good to the world, give me what I want, give me what I deserve to have, and right now, that’s some really good sex”. It’s about a woman taking control and asking for what she wants, instead of simply waiting for it. That’s what this album is, a women in control.

This album definitely relies on those synth tones we have seen in previous albums more than ever, but the layers in every song are there, perhaps more so than her previous work. I’m certain if you listen to isolated versions of these tracks there would be at least 5 different layers on each one. Banks’ voice is stronger than ever, in the chorus and bridge of ‘The Fall’ she practically shouts at us, that powerful vibrato in full force. She’s angry at the people who have wronged her, she forgives, but she doesn’t forget. Those emotions are still there, woven within every single aspect of these songs. It’s a sight to behold (and hear). Banks is no longer naïve, she knows exactly what these people did to her and she’s here to remind them. Til Now and Stroke are about these people trying to take advantage of her, about how they used her to build themselves up before cutting ties with her. There’s an angry power mixed in there with the beauty of the songs themselves. Contaminated is about having an affair with a married man. Brave, for a young woman to admit such a thing and risk people labelling her on the wrong side of the moral coin, but that’s Banks. She’s real, she messes up, she sings about things that make others uncomfortable because guess what, women aren’t there to make you feel comfortable anymore. We aren’t there to shield your eyes from the nitty gritty, we aren’t there to stroke your egos or be sexually unsatisfied in a relationship. We aren’t there to represent one thing, purity or sin, good or bad. We are out here representing ourselves and Banks is at the forefront of that feminist movement.

Despite the heartbreak and experiences with people that quite frankly sound like the worst, she’s hopeful. She’s not about to let it stop her from living life to the full. What About Love is about starting over and trying again when it comes to love. While Banks is firm in that she belongs to no one, it’s clear she’s willing to open her heart to others again and perhaps that’s the strongest thing possible. Fans of Banks feel as if they have been on this journey with her every step of the way and feeling that bond with an artist that doesn’t actually share that much with her fans outside of the music is a hard thing to do but Banks has completely succeeded in it. I no longer get the impression she holds back from anyone as I felt she did in the early stages of her career. She’s excited for us to hear her music, her thoughts, her feelings. It’s a beautiful thing to witness a woman become completely self-realised and to watch someone do it solely through amazing music, well, that’s a blessing indeed.

Go listen or download III now, available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, you know the drill.

 

 

Disney Did Good: Pirates of the Caribbean

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is an odd one. Odd in the sense that, it had a lot of red flags before even starting production that would have made everyone think it was destined to fail. There seems to be two clear paths in Hollywood to make a film almost 90% sure to fail, those paths are making a movie based on a game, or a movie based on a ride.

While Pirates of the Caribbean was and still is, one of Disney’s most popular rides, the CEO in 2001, the divisive Michael Eisner strongly believed the film would be an utter disaster. After all, pirates were a difficult subject to tackle, they were dark, gritty and not very Disney. He believed the concept was entirely too niche despite there being a gap in the market for a family friendly Pirate film, and there had been success stories of such in the past, Hook and even Disney’s own Peter Pan featured a popular pirate villain. Basing a film on a ride however is a risky subject indeed, Eisner was initially right to be sceptical. There are two big issues with basing a film on a ride, the first being, rides are something a large amount of the population might not have experienced, and unlike films, books or music, it’s a medium that’s kind of impossible to understand, unless you experience it firsthand. The other issue is that the source material itself is pretty vague. Disney have around a 30 minute window max to explain a story to people waiting in line and then experiencing the ride itself (and yes, i’m aware most of the time we wait longer than that for a ride at Disney, but let’s just imagine it’s a quiet day.) Unlike books or plays, there isn’t a huge amount of time to create a story, or memorable characters that people can relate to or come to love, so yes, it’s easy to say Pirates of the Caribbean had a lot running against it to say the least.

Once Eisner did reluctantly agree to the project, the film was given an impressive $140 million dollar budget, a cast featuring seasoned actors Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush and newcomers Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom. The film was also directed by Gore Verbinski who had just a year prior, directed horror film ‘The Ring’, again, a strange choice for a director of a Disney film. Once Eisner saw Depp’s quirky betrayal of Jack Sparrow he again had another reason to question whether the film would be successful. Depp played Jack as a useless, drunk, bumbling, quirky….. can I say loser? I mean we love him but he is a lovable loser. Before then Pirates had been portrayed either as disgusting villains or charming, dashing and weirdly chivalrous heroes. (They made livings by raping and pillaging unarmed ships and towns but hey….. gotta love a bad boy…..??) Needless to say, portraying a pirate as a washed-up Rockstar was a strange choice, but boy did it pay off! The film was a huge success and spanned 4 sequels (though i’m not going to talk about the last two because really that’s when Disney showed it’s true, milking the cow patterns and ultimately ruined what was an otherwise great trilogy).

Now, onto what worked about the films and there’s a LOT that worked for them. First off. the characters. Depp did a fantastic job bringing Jack Sparrow to life. Sparrow is the ultimate anti-hero, he’s interesting because he changes sides quicker than he drinks rum and it leaves the viewer constantly wondering what he will do next. He’s funny, he’s charming, he’s smart, despite sometimes behaving as if he isn’t. Ultimately, he’s loyal to his friends. While we came to love him and his interactions with characters throughout the series, realistically, most of us fell in love with him after the first 10 minutes, when he was introduced to us via saving Elizabeth. Let’s face it, he’s just fun to watch.

Elizabeth is another character I feel does not get nearly as much credit as she is due if we are talking feminist heroes in film because damn was she a complex character. The first film was released in 2003 when women were still largely treated as little other than sex symbols or one dimensional rebels, the film itself is set during the Golden Age of Piracy, which was roughly 1650-1720, not a great time to be a woman. However, Kiera Knightley did a great job making Elizabeth her own character and helping her stand out as an important character, often equalling her charismatic, charming co-stars. She is brave, she is smart, she challenges all the men attempting to enforce their will on her, (excuse the pun) including her father, Barbossa, Norrington, Jack and in some cases, even the placid, unassuming love interest, Will. She often does the hard work when nobody else will, hell she’s the one who leaves the crew of the Black Pearl behind in the first film to return to Isla De Muerta to save both Will and Jack, the other pirates are too cowardly to do so….. And that was the film where she was as close to a damsel in distress as she was ever going to be. In the third film she literally becomes the KING of pirates, not the queen, king, and nobody even questions it! Will Turner in my opinion is actually the least interesting character. That’s not to say his character sucks or Orlando Bloom isn’t a good actor, it’s just hard for him to keep up with the charisma of the rest of this cast. If anything, in the first film, he is given the role of attractive, soppy, smouldering love interest used for the plot to advance, something that usually female characters have to endure.

Elizabeth Swann – Pirate King, Feminist hero, all-around perfect human being 

The villains are equally as compelling and complex, often tragic and often go from villain to a character that we root for, Barbossa and Norrington are noticeable examples of this. Barbossa is actually, hardly a villain at all, well, besides the plundering and general pirate bad behaviour, which granted is awful, but if we can love Jack for it, we can love Barbossa for it too. He doesn’t want to kill Elizabeth even when he no longer believes her to be useful to him. He has only spent the last 10 years plundering towns to find the missing gold he needs to become human again. He is as charming as Jack is and equally as funny. I actually might like Barbossa more than I like Jack, he’s just as complex a character but he just sounds more like that classic pirate stereotype which I kind of love. Davy Jones is another complex villain, fuelled by unrequited love, forced into a life of servitude by the one he once loved enough to endure such a fate in the first place. He gives his victims a choice, albeit a shitty one but still, it’s more than a lot of villains would give their victims. Cutler Beckett is another villain that’s difficult to define as such. He’s a police officer. That’s it. That’s literally it. We only hate him because we love our main cast who are technically the criminals and he wants to bring said criminals to justice. There is so much to love (or love to hate) about everyone in this series, from the comedy relief in Pintel, Ragetti and Gibbs to the morally ambiguous Calypso and Norrington as well as the main cast. The characters are some of the most developed I have seen in a film series at all, let alone Disney film series.

When the first 3 films in the series were made, it was during a time when Disney were not afraid to take risks. Pirates, as mentioned before are a difficult subject to tackle in terms of making them family friendly. We as a society can collectively agree that we love them and as kids might have wished to dress up as one or play as one but ultimately there’s a lot of difficulty in bringing them to life in media that is marketed towards families seeing as the things they in their lives ranged from questionable (at the very least) to mass murder and rape of not just armed fleets and soldiers, but also innocents too. Disney’s POTC did not shy away from the pirates antics. We are shown the hanging bodies of the dead served as a warning to other pirates, we are aware of Jack’s womanising ways, in the 3rd film they hang a child to death and Davy Jones brutally murders someone by sticking his tentacles down a man’s eyes and mouth, in the first film Barbossa quite openly admits to the fact that he can’t get off despite how many women he sleeps with. POTC does not shy away from adult elements and why? Because it took the risk knowing that audiences would watch the films for different reasons. If you have ever watched a cartoon from the late 90’s, or a kid’s film from the 80’s as an adult you will pick up on jokes you never picked up on as a kid and that’s the beauty of films that take a risk by marketing their ‘family films’ to appeal to certain demographics, instead of just playing it safe and making a film that ‘has something for the whole family to enjoy.’ There’s also something to be said about family films that also ask the audience to think a little when they watch the film. My biggest issue with Disney now is that it has become a paint by numbers organisation. The remakes are easy to follow, the jokes are bland and predictable, the moral compasses of the characters are very black and white and it’s very insulting to younger viewers to think they can’t figure out story elements themselves. POTC didn’t shy away from this, Pirates is brutal, it has grey moral areas, it is full of things that to be perfectly honest, probably wouldn’t be considered appropriate for children nowadays but that’s what made it so great.

The opening scene of At World End opened with the hanging of innocents, including a child, highlighting the sometimes brutal nature of these films

Aside from the complexities behind narrative and character developments, everything else in the series just works so well. The stunts were innovative and fun to watch, the music by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer is so well done and atmospheric. The scores epicness rivals that of a John Williams score. The CGI was fantastic in the first film and when it was used to create Davy Jones in the later films it was even better. Yes the budget was big and could afford the best of the best but still, there are films that are being released now which don’t put as much effort into making their effects look as realistic, Jurassic World is a noticeable example of this. With POTC, you really felt like the cursed skeletal pirates were there on the Black Pearl, you really felt like Davy Jones was there, the way he worked with live actors in the scenes was amazing and still holds up to this day. The sets are impressive, the attention to detail in the costumes and set dressing is spectacular. One of the only things I enjoyed in Stranger Tides was the little nod to the Pirates ride in which your boat goes past the skeleton of a pirate captain sitting up in bed, surrounded by gold and treasure. It’s one of the more memorable parts of the ride and the film paid homage to it through an entertaining scene between Barbossa and Jack within that same setting.

If you have the films on DVD, the title screen is the pirate skull telling you to choose a path, stating ‘dead men tell no tales’ and ‘here be monsters’, again, similar to an aspect included in the original ride. It’s this attention to detail that adds to the authenticity of the film. The crew were as dedicated as the cast to make this the best pirates film series they could make. Geoffrey Rush famously drove director Verbinski mad on set due to his attention to detail with Barbossa and questioned every little bit of direction in an effort to make his character as real as possible. Depp still to this day visits children in hospital in character as Jack. The actors care as much about these characters as we do and it helps add to the overall passion and energy that went into this original trilogy.

Disney had previously tried to recreate this trend of making a few films based on Disney rides, there was one about the Hollywood Tower of terror, Country Bears (Christ, no) and after the success of Pirates went on to create a film based on the ride Haunted Mansion…… with Eddie Murphy…… and Jennifer Tilly as the voice of a ghost….. and barber quartet type singing heads.……. This movie did not do well. Go figure. Perhaps that’s because the films tried to be too like the rides or too far away from the source material, could just be that they were bad movies, that’s definitely possible. The reason why Pirates of the Caribbean works so well is because it uses intelligent nods to the ride but is also just a fantastic series in it’s own right. It’s authentic, it’s fun, it’s intelligent, it’s just a really entertaining series and a perfect example of a film series done well, again, only up to the 3rd film. The last two films weren’t devoid of good material, I just felt like they should have ended on the high that was At World’s End. Plus, what the hell did they do to Barbossa in the last two films, and Will and Elizabeth? I always think if you can’t get the main cast on-board with the project it’s usually a sign you should just let it lie.

As for the future of Pirates, I hope Disney have hung Jack’s hat up and won’t return for a long time. It’s no secret that the last film didn’t do as well as it’s predecessors, though some of that could be partially due to people boycotting the film because of Depp’s questionable behaviour over the last couple of years. From a personal point of view, I would just like to remember the franchise as one of the best franchises to come out of Disney instead of watching it become a mere husk of what it once was. However, I am all for Disney returning to some sort of original content, instead of these tired, lazy remakes they insist on shoving down our throats.

The Attack on Vulnerable Women

Last year, Twilight celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary. I thought I might look upon that fact with distain, remembering stupid, teenage me who stupidly fell in love with Edward Cullen and Stephanie Meyer’s predictable prose before I saw the light and realised Twilight was a bundle of anti-feminist narratives and bad writing at it’s worst.

I was wrong. Instead, I found myself looking upon it fondly, remembering all the joy it once gave me, remembering seeing it in the cinema with friends and excitedly reading the books before going to school the next day to ask my friends if they had read them yet so we could exchange thoughts. I then recently watched Lindsey Elli’s editorial video on Twilight, titled: Dear Stephenie Meyer, i’m sorry. The video was a detailed look into the insane backlash at the Twilight franchise and it’s fans and one point Ellis brought up was the following:

“We hate Twilight, because we kind of hate teenage girls.”

The point hit hard, especially when she went into detail as to why. Ellis claimed that we hate everything teenage girls celebrate, we hate girls being vulnerable, we hate girls liking boys, we hate girls enjoying romance and in turn we hate women celebrating their sexuality. She touched on the fact that the transformers films were similar to Twilight in the sense that the films, stories and characters were shallow and it pandered to the stereotype that boys love cars in the same way that there’s a stereotype for girls to love dark and mysterious men. She brought up the valid point that the backlash for Transformers isn’t nearly as hateful and forceful as the hate for Twilight even though both franchises are largely benign, pointless and actually not nearly as bad as other franchises pandering to specific genders….. Fifty Shades I am looking at you.

We hate women who celebrate sexuality and embrace it, see examples such as Miley Cyrus, Megan Fox, Cardi B, Kim Kardashian. We hate women who embrace the all-encompassing, ‘I can’t live without him’ type of love, see Bella Swan, Juliet and pretty much 90% of women in literature that predates the 1800’s. We hate strong women who excerpt their independence such as Brie Larson, Emma Watson and lets face it, literally every single woman of colour that has dared to have an opinion. If we do not hate them, we either use them as a warning to others, write them off as annoying or unimportant or paint them with the brush of bad influences, and instead urge women to find more suitable role models such as Maya Angelou, Michelle Obama and Amal Clooney etc (all of which are fantastic role models, but that’s not to say the other women aren’t just as important.) We hate strong women, we hate vulnerable women. We hate morally ambiguous women, we hate ‘aggressive women’, we hate ‘weak’ women. We hate loud women, we hate women who stay silent. The point is, no matter what women do, we ultimately learn, through society and patriarchal values to hate everything that makes women up in ways we do not scrutinise men. We do it to each other, sometimes worse than men do.

Feminism has taken a strange turn over the last few years. We have shifted to now hating women that encompassing anything that isn’t ‘a strong independent woman of 2019 who don’t need no man.’ Hence why we hate women like Bella Swan who seemingly don’t exist outside of living for their male love interests. We shoot down women who choose to forgive cheating partners, we chide women who move from partner to partner or who air their dirty laundry for all to see. One recent example that steered away from this attitude is the characterised version of Elizabeth Schuyler in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s fantastic stage show, ‘Hamilton’. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t yet seen the play or know the story of Alexander Hamilton.

Eliza, while revolutionary in some ways, is ultimately a product of her time. She is a relatively quiet woman, an obedient one, unlike her sister Angelica. Eliza strives for nothing more than to marry her husband Alexander Hamilton and be a good wife to him and a good mother to her son. The first half of the play made her almost into a Disney princess type character, singing about how she first laid eyes on Alexander and felt ‘helpless’, falling hopelessly in love with him from first laying eyes on him. When Alexander cheats on her, she does the typical “you have ruined our lives, sleep in the couch, you ain’t getting any tonight.” Despite her anger, their marriage never becomes a hateful one. Sure, she finds it hard to forgive Alexander for the death of their son, but she does, in time come to forgive him and even goes as far as to encourage him to stop working and spend more time with her etc, showing the audience that she has ultimately forgiven him, loves him and wants to make things work. At the end of the play, she is arguably presented as the hero of the play, the unproblematic fave if you will, seeing as she goes on to tell Alexander’s story and even opens up an orphanage to help children orphaned in the civil war. Considering she is a vulnerable woman and did a lot of things we chide women for doing in modern day such as taking a cheating man back and falling in love with him so quickly and seeing little else outside of her life other than her husband and child, she is never met with backlash and is instead celebrated as exactly what she is, a powerful, complex woman who isn’t perfect, but isn’t bad either. It’s interesting to see how the attitude to multi-layered ‘vulnerable’ women has shifted in some cases and not in others.

Why is Elizabeth Schuyler celebrated as a vulnerable woman who puts value into her flawed relationship but someone like Bella Swan isn’t? Is it because of sexism built into our systems, is it because people object to a modern woman behaving as such, or is it simply just because Bella Swan is a less likable, more bland character? Why do we love Disney princesses but hate women like Bella Swan and 80% of heroines in YA fiction?

I personally do see the attack on Bella as part of the bigger picture, and of how we do hate or fear vulnerability in women as much as men fear strength or independence in women, however I am also open to the fact that there are flawed literary characters that do more damage than good as well. It’s a dialogue I would love to open up with others as it’s one that does have so many different levels and factors. What do you guys think? Does this conversation really eat away at you, or do you see women like Bella Swan as more damaging than good?

Assassin’s Creed: The Franchise That Can’t Catch a Break

I, like so many others, fell in love with the Assassins Creed franchise after Assassins Creed 2 was released in 2009 on ps3. As a massive history nerd I couldn’t believe a game had come along that celebrated one of my favourite time periods, the Italian Renaissance. It’s a game that I believe will go down in history as one of the greatest games of all time, and, despite dated graphics and a slightly lagging framerate, the narrative and characters of the game still hold up to this day. One of the aspects of the game I loved was the length of the main story campaign. The story was detailed from getting to know our main character to getting to know his quickly ill-fated family and Borgia and templar villains and ultimately our main character’s journey from reckless youth to assassin master fighting for the greater good. Everything seemed so detailed and well thought out. After such a compelling game, where to go from there?

Brotherhood followed as a solid sequel to such a great game, it kept a lot of the aspects we knew and loved from the second game, including many of the characters. It also introduced the idea of the assassin order as a playable aspect of the game itself, meaning you could recruit assassins to help you in precise, targeted ways (an aspect I believe Ubisoft largely abandoned far too quickly.) Then came revelations which I thought was too rushed and felt a little lazy in its storytelling, but we’ll move on as that is more of a personal preference. Then came Assassins creed 3. While I realise I was far too harsh on the game in hindsight, after all, the villains were some of the most multi-dimensional in the series, I thought the game was a let-down compared to Black Flag. Connor was dull, incredibly so, he was such a world away from the charismatic, charming Ezio Auditore and maybe that was always the aim. Either way, I didn’t feel as absorbed in the game as a result. There were a lot of good points to AC3, the world it was set in, America during the civil war was larger than any AC world before it, the fact that you play the first 3rd of the game as the villain was incredibly cool and again, added to the complex storytelling aspects of Assassins Creed that I love so much. However, for me anyway, it lacked a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ which I have always just put down as personal preference.

AC2: The game that inspired an iconic franchise

By the time Black Flag was released in 2013, it became apparent that Assassins Creed franchise was now a divisive series. Some loved the series, some saw it as Ubisoft doing what it does best, repeating formulas they know work, others saw it as dead in the water. I ignored the critiques and set out to enjoy Black Flag myself and boy did I love it! It’s still my most loved entry to the AC universe and despite me being biased on account of me loving anything pirate related (Captain Hook was my first love, don’t @ me) I still believe it’s one of the best AC games for a number of reasons. Edward was a rogue. A self-serving, quick-witted Welshman who fell into the order as opposed to previous protagonists that had joined out of wanting to avenge their fallen loved ones or the idea that it was for the greater good. Black Flag introduced naval battles and unique game elements like hunting sharks and whales and diving for deep sea treasure (ok how can anyone not find that cool??) It wasn’t just a good AC game, it was a bloody brilliant pirate game. Some didn’t like the entry because they believed it wasn’t true to an AC game, which is true, kind of. It is true that I can’t really remember any of the templar assassinations and perhaps a focus on stealth wasn’t quite as important as it had been in previous games. However, the lack of memorable templars I think, was the entire point of that game and the golden age of piracy in general. Pirates were the OG rebels, well, maybe not the OG OG’s but they were certainly high up there on the list. They were given plenty of opportunities to be forgiven for their crimes by the English but they chose to literally say “nah, we good, we kind of like this whole pillaging and plundering these rich folks with wigs, thanks for the offer though.” It therefore makes sense that the villains in Black Flag have less of a focus on templars and more of a focus on the pirates themselves. They were their own downfall. The story of Black Flag was as complex and full of feels as it was utterly heartbreaking. Honestly, I could write a whole piece on Black Flag alone, hell, I might, but my point is, I can see the criticisms of Black Flag and why people started to turn on the franchise and see it as losing it’s steam at that point. However, I personally disagree and I think it’s unfair to say that, while it might have steered away from the AC formula, it’s hard to argue that it isn’t a damn good game in it’s own right.

After a couple of half arsed entries on the ps3 after that, AC fans were left to excitedly imagine what AC would look like on the next-gen gaming devices, and that led to the hot mess and ultimately what many consider the death of AC, Unity. Ah Unity, I remember your release date fondly, watching how every other NPC had the same hair colour, style, coat, movements, watching Arno flap his arms mid-air as he fell from the buildings into un-rendered blank space. Trying not to laugh as a serious death scene took place and the only features showing on screen were floating eyes, teeth and hair so long it would make Rapunzel jealous. I, like so many found the game virtually impossible to play upon release date. However, rather than spending days complaining, sending mean tweets to Ubisoft, making a sacrifice to the gods to make the game developers pay, I simply waited out the storm and returned to Black Flag and AC2 after Ubisoft reassured us that they were working on improvements. Did it suck that I couldn’t play it upon release? Yes. Was it wrong they released the game knowing there were so many elements they weren’t prepared for with it being next-gen software, hell yes. Did I let it ruin my love for the franchise? Personally, no. Once Unity was (partly) fixed, I actually thought it was a pretty solid addition to the franchise too. The murder mysteries were cool, the graphics were amazing, re-creating Paris during the revolution was a HUGE endeavour and I think Ubisoft did it justice. Unity was simply Ubisoft’s Icarus, they grew too ambitious before they could realise, realistically what they could manage. Unity I believed, was a learning curve.

Just one of many Unity glitches/examples of pure nightmare fuel

It was at this point, people’s general view of AC was that the franchise had grown stale. While I greatly enjoyed Syndicate, it was a safe bet and unforuntely didn’t make the numbers Ubisoft hoped for. I didn’t even think to purchase the chronicles game, nor did I purchase the remastered versions of Rogue or AC3. Because the numbers were not doing well, Ubisoft did what any company would do when money is drying up, they reimagined the series entirely. Not a bad idea in my opinion, providing it’s not like Disney’s ‘reimagining’ of things which is essentially just an excuse to put out the same thing but with live action because, hey, we could pay writers to write new stuff but give the people what they grew up with and love right?…….. Right?

Thus came Origins, an AC game that predates all other creed storylines and was set in ancient Egypt. I thought it was a brave decision, having a series that relies heavily on history is harder to pull off when you choose a time period that we have very little evidence to show anything of true accuracy. They also removed the easy combat ‘button mash’ system and made enemies harder to kill with stronger AI. Again, this was something that fans had been begging Ubisoft for, for literally years so kudos to the studios for listening. While Origins was huge and truly different to anything AC had done before, again, similar to AC3, I found the storyline dull. I honestly can’t even remember what happened, I found the main character dull and while I did love hippos and crocodiles chasing me, it’s not an AC game I found compelling enough to return to. Now Ubisoft had another problem on their hands, now fans were turning to them and saying “Ubisoft, what the heck was that? Because that sure as heck was not an AC game.” Ubisoft understood they needed to change in order to move with the times but how do you move forward with such a beloved franchise that was so divisive? How do you move forward with a game that while so massively loved, was repetitive and that would be the thing that would ultimately cause it’s death in the long-run?

Ubisoft again did what they thought was best. They created their largest, most ambitious game yet. Odyssey. I was so excited for this one, on account of me being obsessed with everything Greek mythology related. Odyssey came out and I was blown away. The graphics were amazing, I didn’t experience any glitches. The world was huge and vast and beautiful to look at and interact with, the characters were complex and interesting. The combat system kept me even more engrossed in the world on account of having to level up my character to be able to keep up with certain enemies. The side quests were so detailed it rivalled The Witcher 3. For me, similar to Black Flag, it wasn’t just a good AC game, it was one of the strongest RPG games I’ve ever played. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the DLC with the Greek Gods because holy hell am I pleased about that. Despite me thinking Odyssey was a damn good game and truly a reflection of how much hard work goes into the writing and making of a next-gen game, a lot of people really hated this entry. Those who don’t play the games anymore I find, either believe Unity was the death of AC or Origins/Odyssey is. With the latter, it’s because they believe it is completely lacking of everything that made an AC game. There is no AC order anymore as such, it’s now just main characters really fighting for their own personal missions or because hey, there’s nothing else to do but swim away from sharks or sleep with every living thing (it was Ancient Greece, it was the done thing.) Juno and the Roman gods have taken a step back and I didn’t find the pieces of Eden or templar narrative that strong anymore. Stealth is no longer truly a focus given the cool weapons you can now get that do a lot of damage. Eagle vision is not what it once was, the villains are now not always these powerful, well-known figures in history we learned about in our textbooks. Yes, i’ll agree that a lot of traditional AC elements no longer play a part in the franchise. However, I can’t help but feel that Ubisoft can’t win whatever it does with this series. If it sticks to the OG formula, fans will eventually claim it’s stale and dull (if they don’t already.) Some say the series died with Ezio and if that’s the case, well, there’s no pleasing those fans. If they go on with the formula they have created with Origins and Odyssey fans will complain that it’s nothing like the OG formulas and therefore it’s not a good AC game.

Odyssey is a RPG lovers fantasy come true and Kassandra is a bisexual woman’s dream

So where do we go from here? Will Ubisoft eventually let the franchise die? Will they go on reimagining it in new and inventive ways? Who knows? I for one can’t wait to see the next entry into the franchise, which is largely rumoured to be Vikings related. One thing I am thankful for, and I think ALL gamers should be thankful for, is that when Ubisoft decided on moving the franchise forward, they lovingly decided to give us the biggest, most ambitious games of the series so far and did not decide to cruelly offer some sort of ‘buy to play’ structure, which will by the way, be the death of gaming if companies all decide to adopt this structure. Whether you are a current fan of the series, or chose to drop off after one of the previous entries, AC fans can all agree that the series has brought us lots of joy at one point or another and that’s a wonderful thing, for nostalgic purposes if nothing else.

Miley Cyrus – A Modern Woman, A Modern Witch

Years ago, one of my first posts on this site was about why Miley Cyrus was a good feminist and role model and how she didn’t deserve all the hate she received. Years later, it’s still true. Even more so now, with the release of her first of 3 EP’S, She Is Coming. Next week the Jonas Brothers will release their newest album too, needless to say, 15 year old me has been resurrected and she’s VERY happy.

But back to the subject of Miley. This EP’s release was clouded with yet more controversy as this woman cannot seem to do anything without the public turning on her, and yes, that’s not to say some of the bad press isn’t warranted, but this time it was due to some leaked lyrics of Cattitude (a track on the new EP) stating “I love you Nicki but I listen to Cardi”. Hundreds of Nicki fans took to Miley’s Instagram to leave nasty comments and tell her she’s washed up, nobody likes her, her music sucks etc. One of the opinions that came forth from this wave of hate was “you shouldn’t pit other women against each other.” That’s true and I think Miley could have phrased her lyrics differently, but surely going onto another woman’s Instagram to leave negative comments is also feeding into the whole women fighting other women problem which we are trying to move away from? I think she was merely saying she loves both artists but just happens to listen to Cardi B more at present. No tea, no shade….

Regardless, I want to focus on why I think she’s doing good in the world. The first track on Miley’s new EP is titled “Mother’s Daughter” and in my opinion, it’s the best track. It’s the kind of feminist anthem that fills me with joy and badass spirit, I actually looked at my most recently purchased song and realised the order:

Mother’s Daughter -Miley Cyrus

Nightmare – Halsey

Gimme – Banks

Do it Yourself – Illara

My heart sang at the realisation. That’s literally four badass feminist driven songs in the charts currently, and Mother’s Daughter seems to scream as loud as the others. With lyrics like “Don’t fuck with my freedom, I’m nasty, I’m evil, must be something in the water, oh I am my mother’s daughter” it’s a clear middle finger to Trump America and patriarchal values. The songs beat flows smooth like a river and the accompanying melody almost sounds like what stars twinkling in the night would sound like if you could put a noise to such a thing, it sounds like magic. That’s exactly what Miley wants to represent in this song, she states she’s a witch, a freak, nasty, evil, a free woman. She’s as in control of herself, her body and her sexuality as she is in control of her vocals.

As well as being a talented musician, she’s a deeply caring human being who, despite making mistakes along the way, tries hard to do the right thing. She and her husband Liam Hemsworth lost everything in the California wildfires last year, their mansion, their belongings, yet Miley holds onto the fact that all their animals were saved (thanks to Liam’s bravery.) She stated several times that it was the fires that ultimately made her make the decision to elope with Liam in a private ceremony that December. The fires made her realise she had everything she could ever want and ever would want, her friends, her family, her husband and her pets. After the fires, her and Liam both donated $500,000 to help rebuild Malibu, donated to animal charities and encouraged others to donate to Miley’s charity, The Happy Hippie Foundation, a charity that helps fight against the issue of homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable groups. The charity itself is something Miley has been actively involved in since starting it and hasn’t once taken a backseat and allowed others to do the work for her. She doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, she revels in it. Again, perhaps that’s why the image of a witch comes to mind, she’s one with nature, with animals and the ‘misfits’ of society.

The cover of the new EP oozes feminism, from the assertive pose, to the fact she won’t be looked down upon and the rebellious Sex Pistols shirt

Given that her roots are in Nashville and she grew up in a white, country loving middle class family, I think she does extremely well to try and spread good in the world. Does growing up in such a comfortable situation come with limitations to understanding others suffering, yeah of course, but she’s learning, as are we all. Jameela Jamil said something rather poignant the other day on her Instagram, after facing criticism from the feminist community after inviting Russell Brand to an interview, a man previously associated with rather misogynistic behaviour, she had this to say:

“It’s not about perfection. It’s about progress.”

That’s very true. Has Miley made mistakes? Yes of course. But she always takes responsibility for her actions and she apologies when she legitimately believes she has made a mistake. She is open about her flaws, about her ignorance, about learning. She knows the difference between when she has said something that could be deemed as offensive and when she has been misquoted and will address the situations accordingly. Every era of music has reflected a very different ‘version’ of herself. They are all real, they are all authentic, she is merely 26, a woman still figuring out who she is, what she wants, what she doesn’t want and what she aspires to be. She is a modern woman. Yes, she is white, yes, her idea of feminism will be very different to a woman of colour’s idea of feminism from time to time, but she is real and honest, talented and ultimately has good intentions. She weaves magic through her music. I for one cannot wait to see what she does for the rest of 2019, I think we are seeing the best version of Miley, the most varied, the most honest and the most talented. To me, she is exactly what I hoped she would become when I was a little girl just a year younger than her…… an inspiration.

 

Kingdom Hearts 3: The Review

I decided to give myself a few months and a second playthrough before writing my review on this long-awaited game and if I had one word to describe it?

Underwhelming.

Now hold on, I thought it was a good game, just not a great game. There were a ton of missed opportunities and aspects of the first 2 I felt were lacking.

It has been over 13 years since Kingdom Hearts 2 was released, a game that still holds up well, in my opinion at least. Now, why did I wait so long to review this game? Well, because in my heart of hearts, I knew it was going to be a little disappointing, after all, if you build something up for over 10 years, chances are it’s not going to live up to high expectations. But here’s my biggest gripe with the final chapter of Sora’s story…… where the hell did the story go?

I’m not going to pretend I followed all the spin-off games, which perhaps makes my review a little less than fair, I played birth by sleep when it was released on ps4, but other than that, I merely watched youtube playthroughs of the spin off’s like dream drop distance and chain of memories etc quite simply because, i’m not a huge tech nerd and I refused to buy the other consoles just to watch the spin-off stories, screw you Disney I already line your pockets enough as it is. That being said, I knew the story (roughly) of Vanitas and Ven and Aqua etc and obviously Roxas’ story through KH2. The thing is, they built all of these characters from other dimensions and aspects of the OG trio’s personalities etc for what? A lacklustre finale, unanswered questions and a villain that lacked any sort of personality compared to the Villainous titans of Disney films such as Maleficent, Oogie Boogie, Scar and even the various reincarnations of Ansem the Wise and Riku (when he was a naughty lil scamp) of the first two KH games.

Let’s talk about the good points first though, the graphics were obviously amazing, they received a massive upgrade while sticking true to the cartoon like imagery we know and love from the series. The Disney characters were perfectly portrayed as usual and there was even quite a few characters that meshed well with Sora’s character too. One gripe I had with the game that is entirely unfair and just a personal gripe of mine is a couple of the featured worlds I knew would not be my cup of tea. I hate Big Hero 6 and I hate Frozen, so I was never going to fall in love with those worlds, though Frozen did pleasantly surprise me…… to an extent. However I was excited to see the return of Pirates of the Caribbean and the new Toy Story and Tangled worlds, and those two worlds in particular I thought were pulled together very well, especially given the world Tangled is set in is relatively small seeing as it didn’t have a ton of sequels or TV show spin-offs. The reaction commands were cool, especially the ones that paid homage to old Disney rides. So those are the positives, along with some other small little things i’ll probably remember after posting this review, but still, point is, it wasn’t all bad. Now onto the bad, confusing and ultimately dull…..

One aspect of KH2 that I loved which I wasn’t expecting to like was the repeat of the worlds playthroughs. Remember, you got all the way through the worlds the first time and thought damn that was fun, now off to defeat Organisation 13… whoa hold on a second, I have to go back to all the worlds after defeating the Disney villains in them and defeat the organisation this time??? YES PLEASE!!!

Maybe it was because the story was so engaging at that point, I desperately just wanted it to go on, despite already having clocked a pretty solid 25-30 hours of gameplay at that point. The point is there have been other games that get you to go back to the same areas more than once and it ends up being more tiresome than fun (Dragon age 2, I am looking right at you.) KH2 didn’t do this, the story was engaging, the villains were engaging (and enraging, that damn DANCE WATER DANCE battle with Demyx will forever be burned into my brain) enough to make you want to carry on and defeat those pesky guys in black emo coats.

Never thought I would miss this little asshole

KH3 sadly didn’t do this, despite having the time, budget and creative team to do so, perhaps even adding new areas with the second playthrough of worlds. This was something I really didn’t understand, it felt like a step backwards for the franchise. Kingdom Hearts was the test run, KH2 added this method in and it worked fantastically well, Birth By Sleep built on it in the sense that you would go to the same worlds but depending on which character you played as, the challenges in the world were completely different. So why did KH3 just go back to the play once, move on to the next world method? I also found the game equally as linear and limiting in terms of world size as the first two games which wasn’t always a complaint as such, but rather a case of me saying to myself “would have done that differently myself but cool. Whatever”.  Again, maybe this hadn’t have bothered me as much had we not have waited so long for the release. I automatically just think, the longer a company works on a film or a game, the bigger it will be. With KH3, I just didn’t get that feeling.

The story, wow. I should really say, lack of story because let’s face it, that’s what it was. Where the hell were the Final Fantasy buddies, the guys that were fundamental in Sora’s story and discovery of his true destiny? Leon, Yuffie and Aerith as well as Sid and Merlin (yeah I know he’s Disney) were just as important in Sora’s story as Mickey and the rest of the Disney cast in the games so wouldn’t you think they would have been in Sora’s final chapter? Come to think of it, where the heck was Kairi? You know, the girl the first game was focused on? Her focus started drifting even in the second game but i wanted them to make her relevant again in the 3rd game otherwise, what was their friendship and reunion even for? Again, was this just overlooked or was it a conscious decision and if so why? Disney are known for using other voice actors when the OG ones can’t do them so surely that can’t have been a problem. The story itself just felt very basic. The threat of Organisation 13 no longer felt as huge, this time around they felt like flies around your head, annoying, but not really much of a threat. In the final chapter, wouldn’t you think the villains would seem bigger and more powerful ever but I somehow just felt like the game developers were eager to close the book on Sora as fast as possible (despite the 13 year wait between titles) and therefore the story felt rushed.

The boss battles in the end also felt lacking in the epicness of the first two games. Remember the second game, riding on top of a nobody dragon to defeat it? Even the eeriness of fighting Xemnas in that completely white area, never knowing when he was going to jump out and get you? Or fighting Maleficent in dragon form and hopping down those little rabbit holes to defeat Ansem in his different forms within the worlds we had already visited? Truly epic, memorable boss battles, what did the 3rd game give us? Fighting the organisation in a sand maze, fighting Xehanort in that city, or at least chasing him around the city because the slippery bastard wouldn’t stay still! Not the worst boss battles I have played through, but definitely lacking compared to the others. Again, that might be my nostalgia talking but even still…

I guess apart from the story feeling lacklustre, my biggest gripes with the game has been linked to the lack of worlds and length of the game, which goes to prove it isn’t all bad. If you want a game to last longer that obviously means it isn’t terrible. It is however, the first KH main game that I have no desire to playthrough again. I only played through it the second time to make sure i wasn’t giving a completely biased review. The other two games, the second in particular i have replayed over 10 times (at least) and can see myself replaying them at least once more this year alone. It’s difficult to judge this game as objectively as possible seeing as for many of us, KH was a part of our childhood so the nostalgia we feel playing the first two was always going to be difficult to match. I’ll admit that some of my opinions are probably based on high expectations and perhaps loving the originals so damn much anything else will always seem inferior, but i can’t shake the feeling that this game’s story and aspects of gameplay were severely lacking.

I do hope this isn’t the end of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, as a Disney nerd and a gaming nerd this series encompassed everything I loved about both of those worlds and I want to see that fusion continue. I just hope the Square Enix team can continue putting these projects out with as much passion and love for the series as the fans have for them.

 

Help, I finally feel old…

It’s official, I have started to feel old. At only 25 years old, the “i’m too old for this shit” concept is ever present in my head nowadays. I went to a drum & bass gig a couple of weeks ago and picture me, stood in a crowd of teens who were attempting to mosh listening to music I can’t even stand to call music trying desperately to get out of the crowds and stand outside just to calm down and imagine how much happier I would have been at a nice pub, talking about Game of Thrones or discussing world politics with my equally as chilled out friends.

It got me thinking about age and the differences between generations. I think millennials are lucky in the sense that we grew up with the best of both worlds. We had technology, but we also weren’t saturated in it. We could play outside without (too much) fear of the dangerous world we live in, we could play doctor and not be tempted instead by the online multiplayer doctor campaign on Xbox. I actually grew up with a playstation but it didn’t take over my life on account of the fact many of my social circle didn’t. So what was the use in playing something I couldn’t engage with anyone else about? Now I watch my 8 year old cousin, he plays xbox ALL the time. If you take him out without his Ipad, it’s like watching a heroin addict go cold turkey. He fidgets, he can’t communicate well, he’s bored, he’s largely disconnected to the world around him because he, like most 8 year old’s now are addicted to screens. So am I, to the extent that I use technology every day, but I use it to write, I use it to watch TV shows that everyone else does so I can have a conversation with them about it the next day. My cousin doesn’t. He doesn’t play outside, he doesn’t have face-to-face conversations with his friends, instead it’s all done via the headset he’s glued to.

I question my aunt about it as I watch him. “Are you worried he’s not developing all the social skills we had growing up?” I ask her.

She shrugs “I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know. All I do know is, this is what all the kids are like now.”

I can’t argue with that. No matter how unhealthy I think it is, it’s true. Most kids are like that now. I feel sorry for them. Rather than point the accusatory finger and say popular culture is shallow now. It’s what is being fed to them. The world tells us kids can’t play outside anymore because it’s too dangerous. Besides, when we were growing up, our escape to imaginary worlds was a poorly rendered Lara Croft with square boobs, the kids now have these open-world games with amazing graphics that make you feel like you really are in another world, who wouldn’t want to escape to that?

The other point baby boomers like to make is that younger generations are entitled, we expect everything handed to us on a plate, we think we can be famous by doing nothing, we can review products and make millions and that’s too easy etc. Well, that’s something else i was thinking of the other day. The job market nowadays is awful. There’s so much competition, a degree means nothing anymore, years of internships are difficult to survive on and still don’t put you ahead of the competition. Company benefits are getting smaller and smaller on account of companies getting bigger and having to support more staff. Besides, so many young people are desperate for work companies are in positions where they can exploit them because guess what, they can.

With that in mind, no wonder the younger generations turn to celebrity culture. The corporate world has let them down. And when the companies let you down, what to do you do? You find your own way. You make your own success, you make your mark the way you need to when nobody else will help you make it. Does that lead to mind-numbing entertainment that sometimes lacks depth and intelligence? Well, yeah of course, because the companies or organisations that could offer them help has turned their back on them, so of course they might not be as well-informed about real world issues as they might have been if they had been given training or not been charged the earth to go into higher education etc. That sounds patronising, I know it does and I don’t mean to be. I think any one that makes their way in life and earns a living in this difficult world deserves recognition and respect.

I think my point is, if we don’t like where future generations are going, we are ALL to blame for it. I’m not quite sure what it is about human nature that causes us to blame others for everything rather than take responsibility for our actions but there it is.

I wonder where the next shift in society will take us? Will we get even more invested in the online world, will it just be a new world that everyone who doesn’t know any different will love and grow with? Heck, will global warming just get so bad we all just die on the burning garbage heap our planet is quickly becoming? Quite possible.

It’s a strange thing to see the world you knew and grew up with disappear. It’s a strange thing to try to understand the new ‘trends’ that younger generations know and love now when you can’t connect with it at all. Is it worse? Maybe. Is it better? Maybe. Is it the way of life, most definitely.

Taylor Swift and Toxic White Feminism

Tearing down other women is something we as a society need to stop, but what happens when a woman stands as a role model for others and she doesn’t use her platform for good? Well, we call them out. If the Kardashians can be called out for promoting unrealistic expectations of women and promoting items that basically glorify starvation or drastically changing your body to fit the media’s image of ‘sexy’, I can sure as heck call out a woman I believe does little to help the feminist movement too.

10 years ago, I was a huge Taylor Swift fan, I bought her albums, bought the merch, and more importantly bought her image. When Kanye called her out on stage I, like everyone else thought, “wow….. what a jerk.”

Cut to 10 years later and I began to see the damage she had on young girls and more importantly, the feminist movement. Here’s the thing, I love women, I am blessed enough to be one but ultimately, I love ‘flawed’ women the most. People like Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato who have been open and honest about addiction or acting out and rebelling are, what I feel, accurate representations of women and should be celebrated for their faults, their failures and their ability to admit them and move on. Then we have Taylor Swift who has always been problematic and refuses to ever accept responsibility, clinging to this idea that she can’t possibly ever be wrong. Maybe that’s her management team, maybe it’s her, who knows, but it’s wrong.

When Taylor Swift took to Twitter to call out Nicki Minaj on her comments about the music industry not being diverse enough, she took Nicki’s comments personally. She not only arrogantly took them personally, but she also publicly called her out on it. A grown woman, who had the ability to go to Nicki privately and discuss the matter went on Twitter and called her out (wrongly) to millions of followers. Ok? She made a lame ass apology about jumping the gun and saying sorry and that she loved Nicki. But you know what she didn’t do? She didn’t side with Nicki. She didn’t bring attention to Nicki’s point about the music industry not being diverse. Instead, she made it a drama about her and Nicki having a feud and then resolving it. Ok great, two women fell out and made up, good, honestly great. But that was the perfect opportunity to open up a dialogue about diversity in the music industry and she shut it down. Why? Because she was scared to lose fans, which I get. Kind of, but surely being a good role model to your audience is more important?

Then we had the incident with Kesha, Taylor gave Kesha money to fight her court case against her abuser Dr Luke. Again, nice but, she was the only celebrity that didn’t voice her support online, why? Again, she was scared to lose fans. When the 2016 election was happening, who didn’t publicly call for people to vote and vote for a candidate that wasn’t a democrat? That would be Taylor, why? Again, she didn’t want any drama, good vibes only right Taylor? But here’s the thing. There is a difference between a feminist who is white and a white feminist. White feminism is the idea that a large part of the commercial feminist movement is not only dominated by white women but also the ideas brought up are applicable to white women only. We as white women are given more opportunities than women of colour, that much is obvious, everyone knows that at this point. So, the point is, we as white women have to do more for the feminist movement than simply lip service.

Cut to the whole Kanye vs Taylor feud 2.0. Taylor knew that Kanye was planning on using the lyrics “I feel like Taylor might still have sex, why, I made that girl famous.” Taylor went to the grammys and publicly called Kanye out for his lyrics stating “you know, some people in this industry are going to try and take credit for your success and that’s not ok.” A noble statement. One we could all learn from, one young girls could learn from.

Kim Kardashian then leaked the tape that proved Taylor was privy to the conversation about the lyrics, Taylor even went as far as to say “this is gonna be so cool cos everyone is gonna think i’m mad and I would have known about it the whole time.”

Oops.

Taylor then changed her tune saying “well what I didn’t consent to was being called a bitch.” As the lyrics were ultimately “I made that bitch famous.” Charming as always Kanye.

Hold up girl, that wasn’t your issue to begin with. It was painfully obvious Taylor was trying to use the opportunity as a chance to cash in on the feminist movement by inspiring girls to not let others take their success from them. Again, this was a completely self-serving move, so whether or not she did this to make herself look better after being called out on her lack of speaking up for feminist causes or because she likes to play the victim is still to be decided. However the point is, is that Taylor Swift represents everything wrong with the stereotype of a white feminist. If your vision of feminism seeks to only improve your standing in life and your image and you instead use it to ONLY validate your own struggles instead of uniting with all women, having the courage to speak out about issues that affect ALL women and being informed of issues that affect ALL women before speaking out about them, then you may have just missed the point of feminism entirely.

P.s that’s not to say I don’t value Taylor as an artist, while I think the tracks I did Something Bad and Getaway Car are awful in terms of making light of using men and people and basically cheating on someone because you needed a reason to escape the relationship are literally, disgusting, the album RED was essentially a 50 minute bop and you can’t change my mind about that.

The Case Against James Charles

As an avid follower of the beauty world, I followed the new James Charles scandal closely. Perhaps I am biased in my opinion of this story on account of me never liking James Charles. I had always thought him arrogant and entitled and then when he posted those racist tweets about Africa and Ebola a few years back, I thought to myself “hmm, figures” and really stopped paying him any attention.

However, after watching Tati’s video detailing his personal betrayal to her and more seriously, the accusations of him luring straight men into uncomfortable situations and trying to convince them of ‘not being straight’ in order to get some, my blood boiled at the mere thought. The subsequent videos from the boys affected admitting that the beauty mogul left them feeling uncomfortable at his actions and graphic language, left me seeing red.

Let me give some context into why my reaction was so strong. I grew up with gay parents, virtually all my family belong in the LGBT community, myself included. I had grown up listening to stories of the struggles my parents had to fight against in order to achieve equal rights and the constant stereotypes they had to squash or try to ignore from virtually every environment. Because of this, the stereotype of gay men ‘preying on innocent straight men’ is one I detest and, like my family, do everything to debunk when coming face-to-face with ignorant homophobes.

In comes James Charles, a 19 year old, arrogant, white multi-millionaire who, to a large extent, has escaped some of the prejudices say LGBT members of colour face, or older LGBT members had to face growing up in Thatcher England or countries that are even less forgiving than the UK and the USA when it comes to LGBT rights. What struck me as odd and even more infuriating than James Charles himself, who has, in his defence, apologised and not tried to defend his behaviour compared to other people accused of sexual harassment such as Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby, was his fans defence of him.

I get it, we don’t want to see our faves as bad, I was heartbroken when I heard of the Johnny Depp abuse allegations, I was deeply upset by the Jeffree Star scandals. It’s easy to excuse the behaviours of those we have come to admire or love as opposed to a stranger we don’t give a damn about. Still, the art can be separated from the artist, and this case is no different. The fact that annoyed me the most was in this day and age, amidst the #metoo movement, is that if this had been a straight man accused of sexual abuse or harassment against women, and specifically gay women, nobody would defend him. The one comment that kept emerging from his fans which bugged me the most was

“This scandal actually happened months ago, if she had a problem with him being inappropriate, why didn’t she say something sooner?”

Really? Are we really going down that route? Perhaps because she was frightened. Perhaps she thought she would be turned on by the LGBT community if she said anything bad about such an icon to young gay men experimenting with drag. Or maybe, she just hates drama and didn’t want to get involved unless she saw she absolutely had to, which she obviously has.

Actually scrap that, scrap all that justification. That one opinion is the reason why women don’t speak out against their abusers, or of abusers they know of. The fear of being rejected, of being told it’s not your place to tell, the fear of not being taken seriously. Why is this ANY different to any woman who speaks out against sexual harassment? Is it because the man doing the harassing is gay? If that is the uncomfortable truth, than surely bringing his disgusting behaviour to light is the way forward for the LGBT community? Surely separating ourselves from this damaging behaviour is a good thing? Surely being objective in the situation and giving Charles the same treatment you would a straight man caught in this unfortunate series of events is best for the LGBT community? Instead of trying to defend it out of some warped idea that all LGBT members need to be protected and excused regardless of their behaviour? Did we not denounce Kevin Spacey for his crimes? Did we not, to put it bluntly ‘throw the whole damn man away’ when it came to him? Why is this different?

I expect backlash from this type of opinion, it is an uncomfortable truth we have to sit down and really think about, but all I know is, my parents didn’t fight for the chance to simply go to a gay bar and leave knowing they wouldn’t be jumped or verbally abused for some arrogant 19 year old boy to crap over years of trying to erase damaging stereotypes and stupid, untrue images of gay men. Yes, it’s down to individuals and has nothing to do with whether they are gay, straight, bi, trans, whatever, but it’s still important to recognise that predatory behaviour is wrong and disgusting regardless of your sexuality in order for us to move the LGBT community forward as a whole.

As for James, he’s young, do I believe he can learn from his mistakes? Yes. Do I think he’s been surrounded by yes men and that has unfortunately made him think he is above levels of common decency? Absolutely. Everyone deserves a second chance, I was an awful person at 19 and I wouldn’t want to be judged on who I was then, compared to the 25 year old woman I am now. However, learn he must and I hope that this type of behaviour is stamped out everywhere, and I mean everywhere.

EDIT- Ok, so I’ve been keeping up with this story and while James Charles has backed up a lot of his defence with proof, I still stand by his arrogance being a huge problem and I still believe he has been inappropriate with men before, perhaps through nothing else other than his arrogance. I also think Tati has a reason to come forward with such a powerful video seeing as she has, up until now, has never engaged in online drama and is a 36 year old married woman, so I think there is fault from BOTH parties and I believe people are hiding a lot of the truth.

Is white washing affecting the LGBT community?

Films and TV shows that portray LGBT issues seem to divide opinions all the time. While some movies such as “the kids are alright” and “soldier’s girl” accurately reflect the LGBT communities and issues within that community there are other films that seem to be met with some skepticism including the new releases “jenny’s wedding” and “Stonewall.” A lot of the negative backlash for these movies has been based around the cliché nature of the characters and storylines as well as often missing out some of the really important issues the LGBT community actually face and coming up short on displays of affection between gay characters (yes we want more than just one kiss at the end of the film Hollywood.)

However recently, a lot of the outrage has been due to the lack of POC in these films and films being responsible for completely “white washing” the casts. Stonewall has been the most recent film to be responsible for this and consequently has faced more criticism than praise even before the films release. It’s no secret that those on the frontline of the stonewall riots were in fact people of colour, transgender people and lesbians yet the film’s trailer seems to focus on a cis white male actor (war horse’s Jeremy Irvine.)

The director, an openly gay man has simply stated that the film has been subjected to a little bit of bad marketing and the film does in fact feature POC (though there’s still talk of a big lack of lesbians and transgender people, as well as two POC characters being replaced with a white male character instead.) The statement has done little to reassure people and it’s interesting as well as important to know why.

The LGBT community is still considered an underrepresented group in many ways, so creating another film that only seems to represent gay men and ignores lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people is kind of ignoring ¾ of the LGBT community. As for the white washing, people of colour are also often overlooked in Hollywood, or represented as stereotypes, surely it’s just downright hypocritical for a movie that highlights the struggles of one underrepresented or badly treated community to do exactly the same thing to another group that suffers the same amount of prejudice and bad judgment?

Also I know they are actors, but wouldn’t it be great if we could actually get REAL gay and transgender actors instead of just employing yet another cisgender male?