Problematic elements in Deep Cotton's vid "We're Far From.."

[Kodachi148]

This is to continue the conversation on the Fandroids FB group because it was getting too crowded with chattering about the problematic elements of Deep Cotton's "We're Far Enough..." [Pt 1] in regards to gender and concepts of Feminism. So talk about it here.

[Kodachi148]

So my basic wrap up for my responses for the various threads on the FB (what? I think there was, like, three or four?)

- In regards to Echikunwoke's piece "Real Man 101", I remember some folks being upset that I find anyone remarking anything along the lines of "I'm not Feminist because I love men" (Echikunwoke makes direct references of this: "I don’t consider myself a feminist and actually quite adore men") because it shows that the writer clearly doesn't know the difference between sexual identity and social issues, nor what feminism is. Basically, lesbianism isn't Feminism, she should have known that was a myth before typing about Feminism at all. It's best to know your subject thoroughly before starting a piece about it or risk looking highly uninformed and thus, unreliable.

- The vid itself is considered problematic because basically Deep Cotton is bastardizing/hijacking the concept of Radical Feminism into faux Radical Feminism. Faux Feminism constructed in the male gaze always ends poorly. Always. Just a bad idea. Feel free to make usual sexualized vids like everyone else does but leave social issue concepts out of it. I may not 100% like Radical Feminism (I prefer moreso Liberal Feminism) but they kinda don't deserve that. Shoulda stuck with a party vid. Or something like what they did for the Sonos commercial, it was rad.

- Scum warriors are considered problematic because they're just characters of a faux Rad. feminism video, one of the actresses of the characters showed she didn't have a strong understanding of Feminism, but yet they start a Facebook page and label it a "political organization"? Thaaaaaaaaaaaat's kinda insulting for those who actually consider themselves Feminists, Womanists, Hood Feminists and others who explores and discuss gender issues. People, men and women, who dedicate years and brain cells and nerves about promoting gender equality for a group of characters only around to promote a mixtape/fixtape to try to co-opt as if they're gonna still be around a year or two from now.

- The whole thing is problematic because not only is Deep Cotton basically co-opting an authentic Feminist school of thought to temporarily promote a piece of music (this stuff ain't for the long-term, folks), they took an actual, real manifesto and pretty much revamped it for their own uses that resembles very little of the actual ideas of said manifesto. I mean, the manifesto was erratically written but it still is writing that is about and for the authentic ideas of Feminism that Deep Cotton definitely did not remain true to. It's like they saw a basic idea and then went, "Aww yiiiiissss, let's jack this up!"

- I did read the creator of the Scum warriors's piece and wow, suxxors for her. Although I think she's internalized some of the misogyny she was around (that does happen folks, internalized prejudice is a thing) but it sucks that she wrote the video, got worried since the director was a guy and let Deep Cotton do what they wanted with it. I think she still should have stuck in it for the long haul to make sure the vid would have been what she wanted because it seems among the lot, she actually had some accurate idea of Feminism and probably would have done a really good job.

I think I covered everything. (Not even touching their cyberfeminism piece because seriously, I can only deal with only so much genderfail/feminismfail, they just need to leave the word "feminism" alone for a while). Everyone else can converse below.

Since some of y'all are new to message boards, remember that the "reply" button is up top, not down bottom of every post. (Will try to fix that in the future).