Entry tags:

race, vidding, vividcon, vvc 2009

Vid links here.

I missed some premieres in vidshows and Club Vivid and am not attempting to quantify how much time people of color get in multifandom or ensemble vids. Probably more Merlin vids should be on here--a lot of them were focused on the ensemble and included Gwen--but I don't remember them very well. If you think your vid belongs on this list, please let me know.

* = the vid stars a character of color. I'm including ship vids that include mixed-race romances with a white character and gen vids focused on up to three characters in which time is split roughly equally among characters (i.e., the Angel vid focuses on three characters, two of are white, although the ethnicity of the actors varies)

Also Premiering
* Stacia Yeapanis, This Place Is Trying to Change Us (Angel, Angel + Lindsey + Gunn)

The Bechdel Test
* Traykor, Sisters Don't Cry (R.O.D. TV)
[V. possible other premieres in this show also showcased POC, given the source, but I haven't seen them yet. Haven't seen this one yet, for that matter.]

Club Vivid
* Danegen, Start the Commotion (Leverage, Hardison)
* nc, Travellin' Man (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ford Prefect)
* here's luck, Story in a Nutshell (Wonderfalls, Aaron/Mahandra)
echan, Smart Con (Smart Bomb) (Hustle, mostly white ensemble, black lead)
* sdwolfpup, Say Hey (I Love You) (The Obamas)
charmax, Seven Nation Army (Multi. Tagline: Rainbow Coalition vs. the robots)
Laura Shapiro, Mothership (Dr. Who, details)
Laura Shapiro and Vagabondage, I Want Candy (Multi, details)
Jescaflowne, Can Only (Multi, cheerleaders from Bring It On)
kiki_miserychic, Once Upon A Time (The Fall)
Jetpack Monkey, More Than One Way to Skin a Pussycat (Josie and the Pusseycats)

Nearly New
* sweetestdrain, Lead Balloon (Dr. Who, Mickey)

Premieres
* jarrow, Learn to Crawl (BSG, Kat/Starbuck)
hollywoodgrrl, Marble House (Dr. Who, ensemble/gen with significant Martha)
* Kass, That Was Another Country (Lost, Hurley Reyes)
Jescaflowne, Go Baby (Cherry Lips) (Charlie's Angels movies, incl. Lucy Liu)
Clucking Belles, Bromance? Birdhouse in Your Soul (Multi, details)
Greensilver, American Tune (West Wing, predominantly white but features Charlie & Santos (? - I think that's the name? I didn't watch later seasons. Jimmy Smits' character, the president after Bartlett)

Challenge vids
* obsessive24, Red Cliff (Red Cliff/History of the Three Kingdoms)
* marycrawford, Swing (Star Trek TOS/lots of Uhura)


My favorites of the list above were Danegen's "Start the Commotion," Kassrachel's "That Was Another Country," hollywoodgrrl's "Marble House", and obsessive24's "Red Cliff," all of which are for fandoms I don't know (so you don't need to know them to appreciate the vids), and I also was charmed by here's luck's "Story in a Nutshell" and sdwolfpup's "Say Hey (I Love You)" and would like to try nc's "Travellin' Man" outside Club Vivid.

Antirecs for racial issues
Deejay, "Fight the Power" (Tropic Thunder) - This is for the movie about Robert Downey, Jr. as an actor who wears blackface. I will have more comments on this vid later, but, briefly, while I do not take the vidder as endorsing blackface, I do not take her as criticizing it, either.

Anon., "Right in Two" (Supernatural) - Anonymous challenge vid about Castiel's anguish about human violence, with at best clueless use of footage of real-world violence including the LA riots, the beating of Rodney King, and the Iraq war; combined with the footage from Supernatural's racially problematic Uriel storyline, this becomes yet another example of a story in which the pain of people of color is used to illustrate the anguish of a white man, and in which people of color appear only in terms of violence (mostly as the perpetrators and occasionally as the victims). Again, I'll probably have more to say about this vid later. I don't think the vidder intended to produce a racially problematic text or endorses racism; I think s/he did not think this was a vid about race. But I do not think authorial intent overrules audience interpretation and I don't think consciousness is necessary for people to make use of problematic cultural narratives.