“I was thrilled to see that an Asian American character was specifically written into the show to be a complex and compassionate person [who is] part of a loving chosen family.”
Many of us think of washing someone’s mouth out with soap as an outdated punishment for ill-tempered children, but for a long time it was also commonplace as a corrective for women.
The issue with Stranger Things is that its depiction of abuse seems unconscious and uncritical. A series that doesn’t recognize abuse only normalizes it.
Big Little Lies never lets us forget that it’s a show about the inextricable hold that domestic violence has on those who experience it, witness it, and survive it.
All Black women haven’t experienced the trauma captured in Hot Comb, but there are still broad strokes that all Black women have either shared in intimate dialogues with our friends and family.
“Ansari could have used the platform of a Netflix special to publicly apologize, but instead he lets himself off the hook without extending the same courtesy to the rest of his audience.”
