White Supremacist YA Lit, Reese Witherspoon And Other Enemies

OK so I haven't closely monitored the Kristen Stewart infidelity fiasco beyond day three of the cycle, but it is still going on. In Gossip circles, Robert Pattinson is still mulling over whether or not he should dump Kristen Stewart. In the mainstream media that's already a forgone conclusion and they're dividing up the Cullen Estate. On the margins: Jodie Foster is defending Kristen Stewart along the lines that she's 22 and therefore an idiot, and Robert Pattinson is apparently like, playing World of Warcraft or some shit while living at Reese Witherspoon's ranch to distract himself from his pain. And the nagging suspicion that this is all some kind of weird hoax continues to bother many. Too bad Gore Vidal isn't still around to offer his take (did you know Vidal--who is not the former Vice President nor a hair product nor the director of Rango--believed that both 9/11 and Pearl Harbor were inside jobs? Cool story, Gore!) on all of this. RIP.

File Under: Reese Witherspoon jokes

Elsewhere: a while back I expressed concern about some of the racial stuff in The Hunger Games. There was a purity streak to the palest, whitest characters in the book, and characters said things about Rue's district that were weirdly reminiscent of the stuff slaveowners used to say 'round about 1850. Troubling? It's reflective of the same kind of semi-thinking racism that prompted many fans to complain about nonwhite casting. But was it malicious? I'm tempted to say no, now, that I've heard about this fucking book Save The Pearls. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Unfortunately the ire that SHOULD be directed at Save The Pearls is being directed at MTV's Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis (hey, I met that guy!). After hearing criticism of his lack of minority characters, Davis took to Tumblr to attempt to reckon with his own privilege. He was promptly shouted down enough to delete his post. Way to encourage privileged white folks to genuinely engage with you, Tumblr! So it goes. To Davis's credit, his star is Latino. To his detriment--Scott McCall aside--there sure are a lot of pretty white folks on that show! It's all very tricky though, right? Because if you're using paranormal characters to tell a racial or sexual allegory, you muddle your message by including members of that original marginalized group. Or do you? (Didn't I write something about this once? The worst part about endlessly creating new blogs is that you forget where you put things. ONE JUNK DRAWER ONLY, ZAC!) True Blood managed to pull off the God Hates Fangs thing while maintaining a prominent gay character. Oh my god, am I citing True Blood as a paragon of race relations? Time to quit for the day.