Peripheral Post #4 - I need to take a break from HBO

 After a little over a month of consuming nothing but The Sopranos, I decided it was time to take a break from the Soprano universe I was spinning in (I imagine myself breathless, floating in the Soprano space) to watch another show on my HBO watchlist: The Flight Attendant. I was in the mood to watch something entertaining that didn't involve much thinking. (un)fortunately, I am a very critical consumer of media and my enjoyment of the show dropped by the third episode. 

I am somewhat of a hardcore binger where I cannot allow for any moments of silence so in moments of dog walking, exercise, and cooking, I am constantly consuming media. I finished the whole first season (8 episodes) in 2 days. Despite hating it by the third episode, a large narcissistic part of me wanted to finish it so I can properly hate on it for this blog post.

*SPOILER ALERT BEYOND THIS POINT SORRRYYYYYYYYYYY*

I am so dang tired of narcissistic white people (yes, that includes Tony Soprano). While I am incredibly thankful for the hard work of my boomer feminist foremamas, there is much work to be done. As with all great social movements in this country (at least), feminism has been co-opted and rebranded in a way that says it is intersectional, but what it does is quite the opposite. The Flight Attendant does include non white characters (so stoked to see Rosie Perez in a non-cop focused show!!!!!!), but what it does with them is really.... I don't know how else to describe it but neoliberal. There is one moment in the second or third episode where the Black female FBI agent, Kim Hammond (played by Merle Dandridge), tailing Kaley Cuoco's character Cassie tells off her white male FBI partner dude guy that he can get away with being brash, while she has to work 10 times harder because she is a Black women etc etc. I have to be honest, I super rolled my eyes at this part because a) a white man is writing this dialogue and b) a white man is writing this dialogue. This speech is starting to become a trope amongst white writers who are ~attempting~ to make a statement in solidarity with Black women, without actually doing any critical thinking such as: "hmmmmmmmm, maybe I should look into the incredibly racist/anti-black history of the FBI". While I am willing to somewhat forego this for the sake of seeing more melanin on screen, Hammond's role on the show, as a Black FBI agent, was to validate, valorize, and protect beautiful vibrant wonderful Cassie. In fact she is not the only Black character whose role it is to do so. Rosie Perez's character Megan Briscoe constantly tells Cassie how wonderful she is, while Cassie consistently dismisses Megan until the very last episode where she "empathizes" with her by saying "I know exactly how you feel" *insert vomit emoji here*. But wait, there's more! In Cassie's moment of crisis where she is faced with the decision of killing or being killed, her Black queer coworker Shane Evans (played by playwright Griffin Matthews), busts through the door and saves her by shooting the man that wonderful sexy innocent Cassie simply could not do. It turns out... Shane works for the CIA! What a wonderful white world Cassie lives in for real.

There is so much more I have to say, but like the title of this post says, I need to take a break from HBO.