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Racism? In my Heated Rivalry fandom? More likely than you think!
198 Plays10 days ago
This week, we're joined by Ethan to talk about race and racism in Heated Rivalry & GCU. Tune in to see how we analyze different characters across both the books and the show and how we think critically about these identities. Thanks for listening!
Follow us on our socials!
Threads & Instagram: @sincerookieseasonpod
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References & Citations:
Lauren's Anti-Racism Book List
The Struggles of Being Asian In Canada
Misinformation and the Asian-Canadian Experience
Orientalism, Edward W. Said PDF
Orientalism: Edward Said’s groundbreaking book explained
stick handling fan art comic on instagram
Why All Haitians Were Declared Black
10 Years of Fighting for Nationality in the Dominican Republic
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Context
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Since Rookie Season. Well, the summer before. a heated rivalry fan companion podcast where your hosts, Amanda, Lau, and Lauren, break down the episodes from the Creative Canada television series, The Game Changers Novels, various media surrounding this fan phenomenon.
00:00:17
Speaker
Today, we have a special episode with a special new guest. We will be discussing race and racism in the heated rivalry universe. So stay tuned.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hi everyone! Editing Amanda popping in to say that we recorded this episode a couple of weeks ago before the Rachel Reed Discord leak saga that's been unfolding in in recent days. Not sure if it'll have faded by the time this comes out, but that's why it was not mentioned in this episode. I'm sure if those leaks had happened before the episode- before we recorded, we would have mentioned it, but but if you're wondering why that- that it's not mentioned, it's because it hadn't happened yet. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Introducing Guest: Ethan
00:01:04
Speaker
Okay. Hi. Welcome back. Last week we talked about intersectionality, which was so fun and we loved it. I missed you all during this week. I miss you too. Oh, thank you. And you know what? Tea, same. Today, we have a new guest. Ethan uses they them pronouns and we're gonna let them inru introduce themselves. hi thank you guys so much for having me. Of course. As Lauren introduced, I'm Ethan. use they them pronouns. I am a senior at the University of Michigan. I'm about to graduate, so I'm almost free. Yay! That's okay. ah that yeah, when I'm not, i guess, studying, I'm freaking out over heated rivalry on the internet.
00:01:53
Speaker
And you know what? We love that about you. That's so fair. Yeah. yeah Like all of us actually. All the Constantly. So like basically how we found you was we had seen reels and I think you were recommended by someone over at Seaweed Bride possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Erika Ito, thank you, from the Secret Brain podcast was like, I haven't watched Hitted Rivalry, but I came across this reel by Ethan. I love Ethan. Please have them on your podcast.
00:02:25
Speaker
I love Erika so much. I love you. I adore Erika. So you make a lot of reels about, or I don't know if they're TikToks and reels, but whatever platform they are on, about Heated Rivalry. And that's how we've like come across your content. But if you want to talk a little bit more about that.
The Appeal of 'Heated Rivalry'
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah. So I originally got into Heated Rivalry in, think, 2023. I am a book fan. Okay. i in I've been reading the books. I have copies of the mass market paperbacks. I have them because I bought them way back when. And now I'm like so glad I bought them. I'm so glad I own them. And they have like the, you know, shirtless men on the cover. But yes, hey, they're out of print now. They're specialty items. But I've been so I've just like been very familiar with Heated Rivalry and with like the Game Changers universe, the books, I guess, for a while. And then when the show was announced,
00:03:25
Speaker
Actually, I got to the show a little bit late, I'll be honest. I think I saw the announcement like six months before it aired and I was like, wait, they're making a show. They're making a show of like one of my favorite romance books ever. Like, what the
Race and Racism Discussion Begins
00:03:38
Speaker
heck? Yeah, i just got super excited. i was on Twitter for the beginning and then it got really terrible. So I left Twitter. Yeah. But yeah, yeah so i I've just been following Heated Rivalry for a while.
00:03:54
Speaker
And I guess like on the like fandom side or content creation side, like I've been making videos on TikTok since 2020. twenty twenty Okay. Originally about Percy Jackson, which is how Erica and Siwi Brain Podcast knows me. I think i I was on three of their episodes or two of them, but I was making like just a bunch of Percy Jackson videos. Yeah. And then I kind of moved into just like general book content. And then I started posting on Instagram last year.
00:04:25
Speaker
And now I'm here. Mostly a heated rivalry account. But sometimes, sometimes other things slip through the cracks. Slip through the cracks. That's okay. ah Very fair for sure.
00:04:41
Speaker
Okay, so we've been asking all of our guests and ourselves. Basically, our question for the season is why is heated rivalry so addictive? and And as a book person, I guess you knew this before all of us. So tell us, tell us the reasons. Yeah, Heated Rivalry, i don't even... i remember reading the books. I read them both in one sitting. Like Heated Rivalry and then The Long Game, just like, bam, bam, right after the other. Okay. And because they're just so fast-paced.
00:05:14
Speaker
The chemistry is
Race as a Social Construct
00:05:16
Speaker
so good. yeah I guess that's my answer. Like, i just felt compelled to read from the start. And I think with the books in particular, it's like a in medias res is that the right use of that but like it starts yeah after it starts in 2016 and then goes back to their like rookie season or before rookie season so it's like wait I know how I know where they end up I have to figure out how they got there which I love that structure I kind of I I'm not well I don't know how it would work in the show if they had structured it the same way but I kind of do I miss that
00:05:51
Speaker
for this show. No, real, real. Yeah. I'm really like, I'm interested to see your like, cause I also read the book before it like came, like before it was like big, but it did not like, it was not one of my favorite. I was reading like exclusively hockey romance books. And so it like did not clock for me even as like one of my top 10 faves. Whoa. And then I didn't read the long game until like heated rivalry became a thing. So like I was kind of late on that. So I get working definitely to have some, and they've just read it. Like Amanda and Lau have read it like after the fact. So I think we all kind of have differing like ideas and thoughts about it for sure.
00:06:36
Speaker
Got a range of opinion. Yes, always. And experience. Exactly. For sure. Okay, so thank you for that little introduction to you. We're going now get into our conversation. Just as a reminder, we were talking about race and racism. I wanted to offer a little bit of positionality, like that I am a white person and I'm In white culture, we don't talk about race. We specifically are trained out of talking about the topic. We avoid the words. And it is something that we need to do because like I have written work or I have written academic articles on whiteness and the impacts that it has on fandom. And so it is something that needs to be talked about. So I just wanted to offer a little bit of positionality for myself. And if any of you would like to do that as well to kind of start off this conversation, that's totally fine. And if you don't want to share, that's also very fine.
00:07:29
Speaker
As you know, listeners, if this is not your first time listening, I come from a different culture than Lauren and Amanda and Ethan. So i am white from Colombia, which kind of changes
Media Representation and Racial Narratives
00:07:44
Speaker
depending on where I am which is something I talked about last episode. So if I am in the US, I have to like check the Hispanic box, but I never check the POC box because I consider myself as white because of the position positionality that I hold in my country, which is a very segregated segregated country. However, we as a culture, have grown up ah hearing that we don't have racism. Why? Because the idea of racism that we have is very much attached to the U.S. s and the civil rights movement in the U.S. And it worked differently here. Like, the segregation logics of it, everything was different because our colonizers, so the Spaniards, did practice a lot of horrible, rapey breeding with Indigenous and African people. And so, as my mother used to say, but she has been schooled on the matter. Todos somos mestizos. We're all mestizos here. That's like kind of the mindset that we have. And it really takes a lot of education to realize that that is not the case. that we do segregate in races. And you can see that in the geography of the country, even in the city, who goes where, who lives where is very clear. So yeah, that's me.
00:09:09
Speaker
I'll back up what Lauren said in that I am white. I have not written professionally as Lauren has. I've written for my sociology classes during my undergrad, but I've never published anything. But I am very white. I was raised, you know,
00:09:21
Speaker
standard white middle class, the the standard whiteness, I guess. And I do, I really appreciate what Lau said, going to put a pin in some of that of the like, depending on where you travel and where you go, you're perceived differently. i want to circle back to that later in a point that I have. But for my positionality, I am white and have only read stories from people of color or have like read experiences or studied it from an academic lens, but have not experienced that personally directly in my life. Yeah, I guess, well, I'm different. i am. What? it's No way. but Well, for the listeners who are not familiar with me and haven't seen my beautiful face every day on their Instagram feed, I am brown. I am specifically Indian. And within that, I am Bengali and Malayali. So... Yeah, I'm Asian, which going to be relevant for this conversation, i assume. But I do want to make it clear i am. I'm South Asian specifically. I'm, you know, not East Asian, not Southeast Asian, not anything else very...
00:10:27
Speaker
I'm Desi, Indian, whatever you want to call it For sure. But yeah. And I also have like in my classes, I've like encountered texts and experiences from like people of color, marginalized people, mainly in the US or like in the Imperial Corps. So that's another important, I guess, identity that I have is I'm a person of color that lives in the Imperial Corps. And that's like the experience that I'm most familiar with.
Exploration of Shane's Asian Identity
00:10:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think that's also, yeah, like Amanda and I are also US-based, also a part of the Imperial Corps, like, and I think like the way that, why why did you laugh? I just laugh. It's just every every time I think of the US Empire, I just like, oh, Oh, it's a bad, um it's a bad empire. We're aware. yeah I'm too close to Venezuela. I'm too close to Venezuela right now. Yeah, yeah. No, I thought I was saying something wrong and I was like, wow, what am I saying wrong? but No, it's just the, you know,
00:11:33
Speaker
but oo feeling. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Real. Yeah. no How I feel every day. ah So like, yeah, we also want to recognize that a lot of this conversation is going to be like, while Lau, yes, has a different experience, like with race, a lot of it is going to be coming from like US perspectives of race. And that might be different than, i assume it's similar to what I've read about, like Asian Canadian, like experiences, but it might be different. So yeah, just wanted to point that out as well. Awesome. Okay, cool. So the reason why we want to talk to about Ethan about race is because you like very pointedly had several reels discussing Shane's race in heated rivalry and in the TV show. And so like what made you interested in and talking about that, like kind of side to things?
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, so as I said, I read the books super early on. And even when I read the books for the first time, i was like, huh, Shane is Asian, supposedly, or he is white and But at that time, i was like, haha, silly little hockey romance. Like, I don't care. I'm just gonna read this and like move on, you know. I feel like I've had, I've, I've done this a lot when I read fiction, I'm trying to get better about it. But growing up, I when I read books, I would just be like, this isn't that deep, like, this is just for my entertainment, I would tell myself, like, I'm not worried about how my race or other people's races are being depicted. Right now, I just want to like read and have a good time. to go back to Percy Jackson, one of the only Indian characters in Percy Jackson is like in the first book and he's only there so they can like make fun of his name.
00:13:24
Speaker
And like, I literally did not clock that as a child. Like I had to go back in high school and like read that and be like, that is so fucked up that I just like, that just went over my head, you know?
00:13:39
Speaker
But I feel like I had that experience growing up just like reading and being like, whatever, like, this wasn't written, or I don't know, i would would have to convince myself like, this isn't malicious. They're just like, it just exists like that. That's just how fiction is. That's how like, I'm going to be portrayed. So I shouldn't really take issue with it. Because if I took issue with it, then I wouldn't be able to enjoy anything.
00:14:01
Speaker
So that was my experience reading Heated Rivalry the first time. um I was like, I really like this character dynamic. I really like the plot. I like the chemistry. i like X, Y, and Z. so I'm just going to put that aside. But what really got me was...
00:14:19
Speaker
I made a video about this too, but it was reading role Model. is that Is that the book with Fabian? Why am I forgetting? No, Tough Guy. No. no that's tough Oh, Tough Guy. I read Tough guy My bad. No, you're okay. There's seven books. It's fine. There's so many, and they all have the same structured titles. Yes. The Long Game and Unrivaled are the only ones that don't Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, so what really got me is when I read Tough Guy, which is Ryan Price and Fabian Salah's book.
TV Adaptation vs Books: Racial Representation
00:14:56
Speaker
And I picked it up because I was like, Fabian Salah, that sounds like a brown person. oh my god, there's actually gonna be like a person of color like, and not just like, ah not to discount like Wajians and their like,
00:15:10
Speaker
marginalization but like a brown person whose both parents are brown so i was just assuming going into that book i was like oh maybe there's gonna be some discussion of race or like representation of a non-white culture on page and that did not happen that didn't happen mm-hmm Yeah. And also what I will say also Fabian is Lebanese and it's like up in the air whether you consider that to be brown.
00:15:40
Speaker
I do. I do. Yeah. Like i've I've heard like, I don't know. I've heard from like Lebanese people. It's, it's a complicated, it's a complicated thing. I feel like.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. it's pretty amazing So i I would consider Fabian Brown, but yes the book didn't consider him Brown, that's for sure.
00:16:03
Speaker
Nope. And, and you know what? And, and, and that's, that's maybe a repeating trent maybe here in this book, in these, in these books. Mm-hmm. But before we before we launch ourselves off the cliff, what is like one thing that we all want our listeners to keep in mind, like during this conversation that we have about race? does anybody wanna go first?
00:16:29
Speaker
um I just had this thought that I wanted to bring up during this episode. When I was in my undergrad, my sociology classes, it it kind of became apparent at a certain point that race is a social construct in, and we say that about gender a lot, in the way that it is socially constructed in how we perceive it and how we categorize people in just how we serve people into our brains based on the color of their skin, their their ethnicity, and so on. It's a sort of like identity group to organize people. I mean that it's a social construct insofar is that it changes over time, space, place, etc. Going back to, like as Lau said, in different places she's perceived differently. And in this way it's different. And I mentioned in our intersectionality episode there are people who you can't give them a check one box and check one race. There are people who have so many different races or... or you know backgrounds to them but it's a social construct and also it has real impacts on people they're like their race at in the way of categorizing people is used i mean as we should know for oppression to to marginalize people to other people so that way whoever has power can say oh these people are different i'm gonna hold power over them and in that way it's important to understand that it's made up
00:17:41
Speaker
in the way that the way that it is, we just put like names to these things, to people from these places or people that look like this. But it's all, like most human things, it's it's made up, but it still has impact on people. um and And we know about this through through
Fandom Dynamics and Race
00:17:54
Speaker
marginalized identities. So I wanted to kind of keep that in mind that like race is a so social construct, but that doesn't negate how its impacts on people and how race works in our system, the interlocking systems of oppression that we use in this world or that are used in this world to other people. Also relevant was brought up about talking about different places and how race dynamics can be different and how us gathered here are us based. Not to be that guy that was like, I did a study abroad, but I did a study abroad in New Zealand and there the race dynamics were not how it is in the US. In the US, I feel like our race dynamics are very white people and black people or descendants of um slaves or African Americans.
00:18:33
Speaker
And in the in New Zealand or Aotearoa, it was the Maori people and the Pacific Islanders were the that was like the like marginalized group, the other group, and then the white people are the descendants of colonizers. And that was different. That was different for me coming from the US. And that was to me very eye opening to be aware of. It's like in the US, it's not our indigenous people are a subset of marginalized people. but that is not the main race difference here and like here growing up in florida everything the like subheadings like if something's in another language it's usually spanish is like the second language for things but in aotearoa it was usually terryo maori so i just thought that was like interesting into we mentioned being from the us and like what y'all call it colonized no industrial no would you call it the core
00:19:20
Speaker
Imperial core. Imperial core. Thank you. I forgot the word. I haven't heard that before. Or maybe I have and I forgot, but I'm just so used to saying Western. um But I feel like Imperial core is more encompassing of it because it's not geographically locked. So I feel like Imperial core, that is a very related discussion there. But those are my thoughts. Yeah, I wanted to go kind of in the same wavelength as you.
00:19:42
Speaker
As we think, like, one thing i I really want everyone to keep in mind is if racism varies from, like, if our concept of of race varies from context to context, right? So we're saying, like, different countries have different ideas of race and how they categori categorize it and how...
00:20:02
Speaker
they read other people, even though, of course, with colonialism and globalization, we have kind of like started to absorb the codes of those in power.
00:20:16
Speaker
So is racism, like how we fight racism, how we how we use it as well as a tool for oppression varies. And I think one of the examples that for me is like super shocking and interesting is what happens in what after the Europeans came to the Caribbean was called the La Española, is the island where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are placed. And if you look at both sides of that island, you have two fascinating and also terrifying, in the case of the Dominican Republic, ways of interpreting race and of establishing an idea of the national identity. So after the Haitian Revolution, the Constitution says that everyone who's Haitian is Black.
00:21:08
Speaker
So it's not about the color of your skin, but about the fact that you belong to a black republic and you belong to an oppressed nation, to a nation that has to survive during centuries of being like the the example of like, this is what's going to happen if you get independence. We're going to work. So you are black if you're born in Haiti.
00:21:33
Speaker
The Dominican Republic inherited a lot of like the ideals of their colonizers of Spain. And there's like centuries of hate and tension between the two countries, between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. And so the government and national discourse is they there are no black Dominicans. That doesn't exist. We are not black. Haitians are black.
00:22:03
Speaker
To the point where ah if I were to have a baby in the Dominican Republic, that baby would have a passport from the Dominican Republic state. But if a Haitian person, especially someone who is black, but like dark skinned, they would not have a nation, that baby, because they're not born in Haiti, but they're also born in a country that would not recognize them as citizens. So, because there are no black Dominicans, which we know from demographics and from using our own eyes, it's not true. But it's part of the discourse to fight and exclude Haiti from the conversation. And to like, it's also the thing that justifies stuff like La Masacre del Perejil,
00:22:54
Speaker
um which was a horrible massacre in the border where a lot of Dominicans killed Haitians or people suspected of being Haitians that were working in the Dominican side of the border during the dictatorship of Trujillo. So I find that fascinating that you get two countries that make it a state policy to determine that all their citizens are black or all the citizens are white.
BookCon Incident and Racial Issues
00:23:26
Speaker
You know, that like there's no way of like, we're gonna ignore all the codes, like the visual codes that we inherited from our colonizers to understand race. And we're gonna craft a new way of understanding race in one side as a symbol of,
00:23:45
Speaker
resistance against the racism of the different empires that surround the island and in the other side a way to pass as better than Haiti a way to like climb up on the race hierarchy So I find that fascinating and I think that illuminates, I bring it up now because that illuminates the way, no matter what we say today, this is so dependent, like like the but the the categories that we're going to use, the names that we're going to use to explain things. might not make a lot of sense in other contexts.
00:24:25
Speaker
And you need to situate the conversation. So we're situating this conversation in the North American core of the empire, right? Yeah. Ethan, do you have anything that you want our listeners to keep in mind during this conversation? Yes. Well, thank you, Amanda and Lau. that was Those were really yeah beautiful thoughts. But I do want to say, I'm assuming anyone who's listening to this podcast won't.
00:24:49
Speaker
have like you're not the target audience for what I'm gonna say but I'm gonna say it anyways I think or like the reactions that I've gotten to my videos on race a lot of the negative reactions have been like or have been like following the thought process that I myself had when I first read Heat of Rivalry which was like this is just a silly little romance like stop thinking deeply about it This is not something like, don't be woke. Like, why are you trying to like wokeify? Wokeify the gay hockey romance. I'm just like, okay, that's a whole different. that's all Wait, wait, hold on. I'm like, guy guys, guys.
00:25:29
Speaker
Are we reading the same source text? Yeah. like what do you i got to like a I got some heinous comments on my videos. oh like are you I don't understand how you're watching two men kiss and you're having this thought at the same time. I just don't understand. No, literally.
00:25:47
Speaker
but I don't get it. Anyways, yeah. So I just want to, like I guess, debunk this idea that just because it's romance or just because it's Well, i guess very specifically because it's like a gay hockey romance because it's writing to this like audience, this mass audience that it can't, it can't have messages about the real world and it can for like perpetrate harm in the world.
00:26:14
Speaker
Like, yes, this is a narrative, like an escapist narrative of like, I mean, yeah, the idea of like the two best hockey players in the NHL or in the MLH having a secret decades long affair. Like, okay, yeah, obviously this isn't super based in reality.
00:26:32
Speaker
But at the same time, we are reading it in the real world and we are taking away ideas from that text into the real world. When we see like microaggressions in a book, we are going to take that with us and we're going to take that into the real And if we're not actively thinking about that and like, yeah, thinking critically about that and and understanding that about a text, then that's when like that's when it becomes really harmful. And so if you dismiss any criticism, like specifically racial criticism of heated rivalry and the long game and any of the Game Changers books,
00:27:08
Speaker
by saying that it's not that deep but I want to know like well if you think that this isn't that deep then what what kind of thoughts are you already like carrying out in the real world so yeah yeah fun story I have written an article literally about this I have to read your articles as soon as I get off this call I'm reading all of them ah That's so nice of you.
00:27:33
Speaker
ah One of the articles I put out a couple of, I think it was like two years ago at this point, I wrote it with my typical whole author, Mal Stanfill, but then I also wrote it with Megan Kondis. It's called Making Fandom Great Again, Silencing Discussions of Racism and Reactionary and Transformative Fandoms. And basically what we did was we went through bo the don't like, don't read tag on Archive of Our Own and we pulled all of the comments from those fics and tried to see like what those comments were about and what they were referencing to. And most of the time it was people being like, stop putting stuff about like racism or sexism or whatever in your fix. Like, this is my fun little fan object. I don't come here to think about... this kind of stuff. And we compared it to conversations that were happening in what's called Wortham in Action. it is a subreddit focused on basically like making comics white again. And we said that the conversations based on like sentiment are the same on Archive of Our Own as they are in this really racist alt-right subreddit that i was basically like,
00:28:52
Speaker
saying, don't make this thing about race because it's my fun little fan object. And so we've talked about this on the podcast before, like critiquing things, even though you love them is very important. It stops fascism. Like, please learn to critique your media objects. That's very important.
00:29:10
Speaker
So I would like 100% like agree with Ethan's points. But also my other point is there is a book by a man named Edward Said. Edward Said Palestinian.
00:29:23
Speaker
um And he was ousted, with him and his family were ousted or removed from Palestine during the 1948 knockoff. And he subsequently lived in like Lebanon and a bunch of other countries and became a theorist. And he has a theory called Orientalism. It's also a book called Orientalism. And basically, while this is he's writing mostly about like what we would call the Middle East or North Africa from a like United States point of view or like Southwest Asia. While he's writing with like mostly these cultures in mind, I think it does extend. to the cultures of like like Southeast Asia or even like Eastern Asia, Northeast Asia. And basically it's that the Middle East in his theory, he's saying that the Middle East and Asia are positioned as like antonyms to the West. And that Orientalism is the historical viewpoint that Western societies take on non-Western societies. eventually Effectively, they view them as something that is exotic.
00:30:25
Speaker
different or less civilized. It's a critical viewpoint which asserts that many academic studies and social viewpoints value and evaluate Western customs and practice as being normal or civilized and that these non-Western cultures or society are counterposed against it. And so it's it's important to note that like Orientalism isn't a set of myths. It is an interconnected system of institutions, policies, narratives, and ideas. us And I think that this is something that is really impactful when we think about Shane's story and how even like Ilya is maybe viewed a little bit in certain contexts, especially as like, we talked a little bit last week, Ethan, about Ilya being a refugee. And so like how some of the ways that Ilya is approached as like a refugee can like fall under Orientalism. But that like ultimately what keeps Orientalism flourishing and relevant is it's consistent and active traffic between fields, findings in academia, inform foreign and domestic policies, portrayals in popular culture. influence the framing of news about Southwest Asia and North Africa and vice versa. And there are links between the culture and like understanding that like there are links and like understanding like the power and the oppression behind that is like fundamental in understanding the reach of Orientalism. So, I just wanted to kind of say like, if you haven't read Orientalism by Edward C.E., please go read it. It also is a very good, like, I think primer to like the Palestine-Israel, like the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people like throughout history. And so that's really interesting. But I think like some of the talk that we have about Orientalism kind of portrays into how we talk about Shane's character or how Shane's character is seen. So
00:32:18
Speaker
that was That was my point that I wanted to get into. do we have anything else that we want to say before we get into race and heated rivalry? Yeah, I wanted to add something to what Ethan and you said, Lauren, because i I am not surprised, Ethan, by what you got from the comments. But at the same time, i like this has been our position since we created this podcast. like We are going to analyze and criticize. this media but also I don't think people specifically people that don't have to worry about it but even the people that do like you were saying Ethan like I just didn't clock it back then even though like I might have experiences that are similar to the mental aggressions that we see in the books I think we as a culture in general in like
00:33:09
Speaker
Western countries and even like as a generation, maybe, be although Ethan is younger than like younger than me, i think I think. I think that we didn't learn to clock it because it was not it was not cool to clock it. But I have done like due to the series that shall not be named in this or any of our episodes in the future. And i am forthcoming. i I remember, like, I have done during the last decade, I have done a lot of like, going back to my experience of being a fan of that series and realizing what I had interiorized. but Like, my idea of being a woman, for example, like, there's a lot of comments there about, like, girls that don't cry are cooler, or girls that go together to the bathroom and laugh are silly. And and and you get, and and that series is like a case study for microaggressions in the creation of characters.
00:34:13
Speaker
worse And macroaggressions. And aggressive aggressiveness. And I think i i like if you don't talk it, you do internalize it.
00:34:29
Speaker
So either you are someone who is part of one of those groups being... suffering like the violence of those words and the creation of this universe or you're someone who is in the side of the potential oppressor but you're both interiorizing that idea that that is where those people belong and how they should behave be it like a gender issue like i clock but also like a race issue and then when that woman made like the these are the schools around the world that are like oh god yeah the one in latin america that was i think that was one of my wake-up calls i was like oh you were like oh god the racism really jumped out there i was like okay this is interesting
00:35:21
Speaker
So i I always say like, okay, you want to escape this and go to a universe where this doesn't happen, but you want to escape it into a white utopia? Or do you want escape it into like a transracial like utopia where like, yeah, I think it's different. Like people want...
00:35:44
Speaker
one thing when they're like saying like, don't don't talk about misogyny, don't talk about race, don't talk about oppressions because I'm having fun. And that usually means...
00:35:56
Speaker
make this as normative as possible so I don't have to think, but because the presence of something that is not normative, it's already disturbing to people because we were not raised to think that way. So yeah, that's kind of what what i where i go to when I see those comments like,
00:36:18
Speaker
you're really either expecting ah all of us who do not belong to the norm to disappear so you can have fun or you're either like falling into the narrative that to be like the right kind of woman, racialized person, etc. you need to you need to pretend that this doesn't affect you and you need to pretend that this doesn't exist.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah. Ethan, please say your comment that you just sent in the chat because that's so... Yeah. Well, Lau, while you were speaking, I had the thought of like, for these readers that don't want or that want like this escaping escapist ah experience, do they want a non-racist world that's non-racist because racism doesn't exist or because the races like races other than white don't exist? Yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker
So what you were saying about a white utopia. Right. And like, and that plays into like the whole like, oh, I don't see color. Like i you know, like I don't care if somebody's black. I have a black friend or like whatever. And that's just like, those are microaggressions on microaggressions on microaggressions. Shout out to my friend Linda from Kenya.
00:37:28
Speaker
who did her master's with me. I don't think she will ever listen to this. Linda would say to people like in Boston who are doing her master's, oh, you don't see color? have you Have you asked a doctor about that? Like that is not... yeah That's not normal. him Or my family hits them with the, I hate everyone no matter what color they are, if they're pink or purple or brown. and I was like, oh. if they're pink or purple. Right. Right. Hello?
00:38:00
Speaker
But this is why representation matters. Like, exactly. Like, if you're still wondering why representation matters, like, this is exactly it. And and it's not just that ah what representation matters. It's that representation. like valuable good well thought out representation exactly yes yes and this is like illustrates the power of storytelling because like like for white people a big way for us to have sympathy and empathy with other people that are not white is to read their stories and to have proper representation and then read their stories that is how we that is how we
00:38:32
Speaker
that is how we understand other other experiences that are not us and how we can don't know somehow address this internalized racism and or this outward racism that a lot of people have not even just white people but yeah yeah that's just the power of storytelling is something to emphasize Yeah, I think this leads us really well into kind of our next part of our conversation, which we're just going kind of go through all of the parts of heated rivalry and analyze for race and racism. So we're going first start with the books. obviously heated rivalry and the long game. I would just like to point out, just because I have the data, the National Hockey League is 83% white and the officials are 90% whites. There are 35 white
00:39:15
Speaker
current black players out of probably like 1100 players. There are 19 players of Asian descent, eight players of First Nation or Indigenous descent, three Latine players and three Middle Eastern North African players. out of 15 or about out of 1100. So I was just gonna ask that. You said that's the NHL and not including the PWHL.
00:39:37
Speaker
That is the NHL. Okay. That does not include the PWHL. I don't have those statistics because I'm talking specifically about Shane's story right now. So I really want to focus on the NHL specifically. That's fair. So yeah, we can do that later on.
00:39:50
Speaker
Okay. So let's talk about Shane's race in the book. So Shane's race in the book, where? who Exactly. Where? yeah where ah yeah What?
00:40:07
Speaker
Allegedly. Allegedly. The alleged race is Japanese. I was talking to a friend recently about heated rivalry. We hadn't spoken about it before. And we were talking about how we love the characters and how oh we're excited for Unrivaled. I was like yeah, like I heard that the date got pushed back because Rachel Reed wants to take more time to think about like the race issues or the race problems. And my friend goes, what?
00:40:34
Speaker
race issues and this was a text conversation but this this person it i wouldn't even get into their identity but uh they're not white and i was very much like you didn't clock that so which again reiterates our conversation of not always it's not always muscle i was like was it not glaringly obvious to you that they mentioned once that he's asian and then never again literally never again yeah yeah ethan go ahead i have i have a unrivaled quote but i would love to hear you Yeah, well, the video that I've, or the first ever video I made talking about race and the one that like went viral and the one that Hudson liked and Jacob liked. um I didn't know that. Oh, what? Okay.
00:41:17
Speaker
I thought we knew that. But anyway, I thought that's why I was here. i don't know We just, you didn't need the validation. I know they were noticed like that.
00:41:30
Speaker
No, yeah. And listen, Ethan, if you needed validation, Erica's validation was enough. Erica's validation was enough for me. was literally, like, when we started conceiving of this podcast, like, you were the first person that Lau was like, and you need to invite Ethan on the show to talk about this. I have both in both Lau and Erica, so I was like, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Aw, thank you, guys. Aw. Anyways, that reel that Hudson Williams Jacob Teary liked. Yeah, so that reel, I just made, was kind of like a, I had been wanting to make that. I made it, I think after the second episode, or I made it like while the show was still airing.
00:42:15
Speaker
And I posted it and I was basically like, wow, I'm really glad that Shane's identity is actually visible of course visible because now we're in a like visual media but also like it's part of the script like they they drew attention to it in episodes one in episodes two in like all of it there's there's discussion or i maybe not discussion but just like incorporation of shane's race and his position as as an asian canadian at the top of his game in a sport that doesn't have many people of color like the statistics you were saying lauren but i yeah i just made that video being like i'm glad he's asian in the show because he was not asian in the books i said that word for word in the video i was like
00:43:04
Speaker
you I was actually going back to that casting and announcement announcement of like, i was I was really happy that they casted an Asian person to play Shane. Because that's how low the bar was for me. I was like, they're certainly gonna erase his identity. But then they actually cast an Asian, a Canadian person, like a Waysian person. And I was like, that's nice. I'm like, that's great. I'm glad.
00:43:34
Speaker
no like literally, I mean, it's, it's like throwaway line in the book. i Maybe one or two, like it's yeah literally not discussed at all. And like, i have this question. I have this word for word quote from the long game on page 46. It's Ilya and Shane are out with, I think they're at Fabian's like little concert.
00:43:55
Speaker
Possibly. I'm not exactly sure where they might be during this, but it says Ilya glanced at the end of the table where Shane was sitting as Ilya suspected had suspected Shane looked confused and uncomfortable.
00:44:06
Speaker
Hockey had never made Shane sad for a minute of his life. Ilya couldn't pretend to know how it felt to be let by down by the game that he loved, not the way that Max or Ryan had been, but he was more aware of hockey's flaws than Shane was. He'd been paying more attention over the past year to the darker side of this sport.
00:44:22
Speaker
What do you mean by that? What you mean? What do you mean Ilya knows how bad? What do you mean? what are you talking about? You're telling me the Asian player, that he never experienced racism? He's never been disillusioned by the NHL or the MLH or whatever we call it? You're telling me he's never, never been disappointed in that organization? Oh my Right. And like Rachel for her writing notes having like Shane doesn't feel trauma. And I was just like. Oh my god. yeah Half Asian man doesn't feel trauma. Like girl come on. because please Listen.
00:45:03
Speaker
would be so interesting. If Shane was just. Pretending not to notice. Because of how. A lot of immigrant children learn not to point out all of these things. And you try to assimilate and you try to pass. And that would have been very interesting to see in that character. You know, like him being like, this is an like we see in the show when when he's asked about like, He shared struggles with Serena Williams and Tiger Woods. And he's like, I don't want to think about that. I only think about the sport. That makes sense because that is like probably something he learned to do from very a very early age. So he wasn't like...
00:45:48
Speaker
treated as this quote-unquote like whiny player that wants like that wants to like become the victim too woke and this is not an environment that is welcoming of any of these thoughts so that would make sense to me but the fact that ilia who actually knows him you know like He will clock out.
00:46:10
Speaker
Our Ilya Rosenev will clock if Shane knew this. So the fact that Rachel really wrote Shane as like oblivious to all of this offends me.
00:46:21
Speaker
It's offensive. yeah It's offensive. Like that's what it is. It's like you really don't care about any other perspective than a white perspective. Like You have never been forced to think outside of that perspective ever in your life or like to think about how your actions like implicate. And like, I think there is like, I know that like Rick Reardon in the past has like come out and said, like when I wrote Pro C Jackson, like we did not talk about race, like largely the way that we do today. Like the dissemination of information on the internet has like helped that a lot. And that like a lot of my understandings about race and like
00:47:02
Speaker
perspectives beyond my own were not included in those books but like Rachel girl you wrote this book in 2018 like right times weren't that different babe like not that different okay which then makes me like then makes me question that like oh she thinks it's just a stupid little romance novel like that's what it feels like to me like she's like oh it doesn't matter it's just a dumb little romance novel Yeah. I think what really gets me too about, like like you said, Lao, having Shane be, especially as like a mixed race person, and we don't know how white passing Shane is in the books either. So it could have been something to be like, you have this potentially white passing Asian person in the hockey league. Maybe he's just ignoring that he's Asian because he doesn't want to think about it. He wants to pretend that he's... white that he shares the same privileges that he's not like privy to the discrimination that he might like hear in the locker room or like whatever else you know he wants to exclude himself from that and be included in the dominant group like that would be an interesting thing to explore but it's simply not explored but and what makes it worse for me is that
00:48:19
Speaker
Rachel Reed does write about oppression in her books. Like the whole plot of the long game is Shane and Aaliyah being scared of being outed because that will have very real consequences. So I like I went and pulled up. I actually just bought the long game in Heated Ravelry today. I actually have the copies, which is But on page 185 of the long game, this is like during the scene where Shane is being confronted by the commissioner.
00:48:49
Speaker
um The commissioner says, I know that historically hockey hasn't been the most inclusive sport, but obviously anyone can make it to the very top if they work hard enough. I mean, you're proof of that. Shane wasn't sure if Crowell was referring to his rumored homosexuality, his Japanese heritage, or both. That is one of two mentions of the word Japanese in the long game.
00:49:12
Speaker
ah And I'm like, clearly you have some knowledge Shane has some knowledge and the author has some knowledge that being Japanese would impact his game and would impact how he moves through the NHL the same way that being gay would impact how he moves through the and NHL.
00:49:33
Speaker
Exactly. So and why do we have the gay part on the page, but not the race part? That is the question, Ethan, because we see like what you and i were like saying, like it would be one thing if Shane was going through like,
00:49:48
Speaker
I'm ignoring this part of my identity because didn't survive and that's how I learned to survive because that is what we see with his gay part, you know? like he's The way he's deluluing himself into heterosexuality. Yes!
00:50:05
Speaker
Why don't we see that with the race part? Like, really, like, the the the the the blueprint is there to understand how Shane thinks and how Shane... builds a narrative to lie to himself in order to be more acceptable and palatable to the public? Why don't we have the other elephant in the room of being in hockey, being Shane Hollander in that internal monologue and in that narrative that he's building? Where is that?
00:50:37
Speaker
Like it's right completely absent. And as Ethan was saying, like what makes it weirder and more upsetting is the fact that we are talking about oppression in these books. We're just not talking about this aspect of oppression, which is shady and I don't like it. Right. And like Shane's race plays into like so many of his fears about being outed. Because like if we think about the way that like Asian men are portrayed, they are like very emasculated. Right. Yeah. And like he like his fear about being outed also stems from how his race is like portrayed and people interact with that. Like Asian women have always been seen as like over-sexualized or viewed as like very young and like very like little girl-like in a way more disgusting realm of places that we don't even have to get into. But like like so much of Shane's like anxiety regarding this issue is because it's not only that he would be different because he's gay, but it's also because he would be different because he's gay and Asian.
00:51:46
Speaker
And so, yeah, I think like the book, I mean, obviously like the books don't touch on it at all. And it's just like, and and and I think the other thing that I want to say about this is like, I think this is an overarching point of like overall is that, and I think it will segue us into talking about the TV show is that Shane, like a lot of times people expect characters to talk about their racial identities because they are being oppressed in some way, shape or form, or that is the only time. that characters talk about their racial identities is because they are being i oppressed is because they're experiencing racism and like i don't think that's what shane's story should be at all like i want to know about like yuna is so close like as an immigrant like she is so close to like traditional japanese cult like i want to know how that was like a part of shane's life growing up or whether it was not like does he have like special Japanese food that he likes to cook does he because they speak Japanese yeah do we have no idea if they speak Japanese home like you know like all of these things like that we just don't get at all either you know and so I think it is not only that we should have like when we hear about it in the show it is always in regards like when we hear about Shane's race it's always in regards to some kind of negative thing like it's the metros guy being the metros gm being like oh well like we don't even care that he's asian canadian it's rose talking about the other my like the other minority in like the other asian minority and shane's like hockey camp like who had a different like a non-western last name like it is it encompasses the show but it's only talked about negatively
00:53:23
Speaker
I was going to say something about, Lauren, when you were saying, like, Shane, does, yeah, does Shane, like, interact with his Japanese identity at home? Does he have foods? Does he speak the language? All of this stuff.
00:53:36
Speaker
And if not, then we need a reason for that, too. Like, exactly. You know, like, I actually am not even asking. i i I mean, maybe we can talk about Unrivaled later. we will talk about Unrivaled. It's on there. I'm not even wanting, like, from Heated Robbery from the long game, I'm not even wanting more, like, Japanese things on the page. Yes. I just want him to think about his race a little yeah Like, I don't want it to be, like, because then we can, then it'll, like, fall into, like, it can fall into stereotypes and fetishizations. He will eat sushi every night, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's like, okay, then we're going to get into that, which is also not good. Right, and like the pandering. Yeah, I don't want these like superficial references to race. I want the way that a character of, a person of color would think about race. I want to see a little bit of that in a book. Because I understand these are books, like you you can't capture an entire experience in a book. But you can capture a little bit of it. That's why we read to like get windows into other people's experiences and lives. You can capture a little bit in a book. So I'd like i'd like his race to be a part of that. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, like, I think, like, a great point to include it would have been if she talked about COVID at all, but she didn't talk about COVID at all.
00:54:59
Speaker
Nope. Because, like, ah we know that, like, Asian people are facing, like, insanely high rates of anti-Asian, like, rhetoric right now because of COVID. And so, like, that could be, like, an end point for Rachel Reed to talk in Unrivaled about it, but she didn't even fucking put COVID in her books. Yeah. Which, I mean, is a whole other thing that I've also written on. But... ah Yeah. Like, I totally get what you're saying, Ethan. Even just, like, talking, like, pointing out at the fact that being Japanese versus being Vietnamese or Chinese will put...
00:55:38
Speaker
Yuna at ah like a different level in the eyes of these Canadians, because Japanese are like the in in in the minds of the West, they're the elite, like they're the superior culture yeah of this area of the world. And so how does that play into it? Is is that why Shane is accessing a different treatment or something like that? like Right, exactly.
00:56:04
Speaker
as as Ethan was saying, like, if so, then why? i i need i need more about it. And i need i I need to understand what is going on. Yeah, and one of Ethan's reels that I'm sure we'll get into, we talk more about the show is, but I really wanted to bring up in our conversation today is also when Ilya is having, like we said, where he, and and I know what's up the show, but when Ilya says, i know your mother's Japanese or something, Ethan, you said that Shane, at Hudson, as Shane could have said, actually, I'm Korean, and I will let you explain.
00:56:35
Speaker
I'll extrapolate on that in a minute, but I also while we were talking about Ilya a minute ago, I wanted to bring up that we know that Rachel can write about how a race um or an an ethnicity is important to a character for their background because of Ilya like that's his whole thing. Yeah. Ilya is white passing. Like if you don't hear him speak through the accent, like you don't initially know so that he's Russian or that he is this other identity or this non-American or non-Canadian, I guess. But we know that she knows that a place a person's like place of origin or person's culture, a person's background can have ramifications to like as an identity, ramifications in their lives as an other. And so like through Ilya, that's his whole part of his whole thing and why he can't come out. And
00:57:18
Speaker
Like, for me, for in this conversation, to say that her jumping through these hoops to kind of ignore Shane's identity, like, you don't have to. You already did it through Ilias, so why can't you also it through Shane? It just also pisses me off. Lauren? Right.
00:57:33
Speaker
And I think there is like i think there's also a privileging within these cultures themselves. of like Shane and Ilya's differing identities because most of Russia is directly over China. So that means a lot of the people in Russia beyond those very small Western like cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg are or look more like Asian people. Right. And so Ilya is also being privileged through colorism and racism in some shape or form. And I mean, so is Shane. Like he is, you know, as adjacent to whiteness as he can be as an Asian person. Right. Like I've seen people say before, like white passing, but he's not white passing because he's Asian. But
00:58:22
Speaker
you know basically he is you know he has that like there is that colorism yeah amanda what you were saying as well to talk about like ilia his identity being fully explored as slavic person as a russian person and also like that kind of leads into my reel that i made about that one line of dialogue of like um all I know about your mother is she's Japanese or something. Because most of the comments that I got, other than like the the flat out like hate comments, the comments that were trying to engage with what I was saying, but were like kind of missing the point, those comments were like, no, as a Slavic person, Ilya would say that.
00:59:05
Speaker
As a Russian person, Ilya would say that. Because in Russian culture, this is how we talk about race. Or like, he's trying, you know, he's trying to not let on that he knows about Shane. So that's why it's worded that way. And just people making, i mean, not, they're not really excuses, because they are reasons. I can believe that this line of dialogue would be said by a real person who doesn't mean harm. But that's how microaggressions are. They're not done intentionally. They're done because you are you say them through your frame of reference, whether that's Slavic culture, Russian culture, white culture, just whatever it is. like You say that because you grew up with a set of experiences that makes it okay for you to say that into yourself. You're like, I'm going to say this and I don't think it's bad because I don't have the frame of reference to believe that it's bad. That doesn't mean it not bad though.
01:00:00
Speaker
Like, if you say something bad, but you don't believe it's bad, that doesn't change the fact that it's still bad. Right. exactly Well, to me, the using Ilya's Russian-ness to defend this particular line of dialogue, I was like, why are you so willing to let Ilya's identity shine through in this scene that is supposed to be about Shane's identity? Yep. It's supposed to be, again, like one of two mentions. Actually, this might, no, it's one of two mentions in Heated Rivalry and then one of two in the long game. It's like just so few. But in Heated Rivalry, this is like the second time we get the word Japanese in the book. And you're willing to let Ilia's character be the one that like gets this scene. Like you want to protect his characterization in this scene. You don't want to protect Shane's. Like,
01:00:51
Speaker
You don't want to make Shane be like, wait, that kind of felt weird. Or I don't know. Again, it could be something interesting if Shane himself doesn't clock that it's a microaggression, because that again feeds into how he's growing up and how he's internalized his race. I just know that's not what's happening here. I know that's not what's happening here.
01:01:11
Speaker
so Also, like, I have seen a decent amount of criticism about Ilya's Russian-ness and how that's even portrayed his, like, ethnicity because everybody's like, oh, well, he's kind of like the stereotype of Russia. Like, brooding, like, you know, has the horrible dad, drinks a lot of vodka, you know, like drives fast cars, like he's a Slavic fuck boy, you know? And so I've seen the argument even made that like, Ilya's ethnicity is not really even that developed into, especially as someone who is an immigrant. So like, I think there is just a lot too
01:01:47
Speaker
this like there are a lot of things there are a lot of moving parts that rachel reed i don't think considered really truly when she was writing this novel i do want to shift to talking about the show because i think we have kind of identified that there are more they maybe do a little bit of a better job like the casting i'm Like, like, also, like you had said, Ethan, like, I was surprised that they kept Shane's casting as an Asian man. And that like Hudson was also like half Asian, like there is more just a portrayal of POC characters like is JJ black in the books? Is he Haitian? He is. i think so. no
01:02:28
Speaker
Okay. Lau is our resident JJ expert because Lau loves JJ. so He's great. Yeah. I love Haiti. So that was like, as soon as I read that, I was like, yes.
01:02:42
Speaker
Yes. But Svetlana is notably not her white, blonde, Russian counterpart as she is in the books. She's a person of color in the TV, or her actress is a person of color in the TV show. And we love Ksenia. Like,
01:02:55
Speaker
down bad she's a fleet fan by the way shout out shout out to the fleet boston fleet yeah i saw those clips too oh my god i was like i need to go be a lesbian at a pwh game with her at a fleet game specifically right now right meow Okay, Millennial. Anyways, sorry. Okay, so let's talk about the show. Do we think they did a better job?
01:03:22
Speaker
I mean, the bar was literally... not Yeah. Because how could you not? How could you not? The bar was in hell. yeah You want like the ninth circle of hell?
01:03:36
Speaker
My daily Dante reference for you? And the bar was there, so it was really hard to not improve that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they could have made it worse.
01:03:48
Speaker
they could They could have, well, they could have made him white, so Exactly. why that They could have made it worse. White men have disappointed me in the past. So thank you, Jacob, your for every day not doing that. yeah Yeah. Every single day. Yeah. Definitely the show is better. But I think like what really surprised me, I think one of my favorite scenes, um,
01:04:13
Speaker
in the show is the interview that Shane gives in French to like that person and I feel like that went over a lot of people's heads but it did not go over mine. I was i was watching that and I was like this is great because that's what it like that that scene is where I saw the possible characterization of Shane as someone who doesn't want to think about his race. Exactly.
01:04:37
Speaker
Like he is getting this question about Tiger Woods and Serena Williams to very prominent black athletes, like top of their games. and he's like, no, I don't think about myself in that way. And I i love how like it's very layered in in a lot of different ways because it's like, number one, Shane doesn't want to think about race. Number two, Shane is not black. He doesn't occupy the same space that those two other athletes Occupy. Yeah. He's not, he's, he's not facing the same challenges that Tiger Woods and Serena Williams face. He's, he's, he's facing an entirely different experience because he's not black and he's half white. So. And he doesn't live in the U.S. And he doesn't live in the U.S. Yeah.
01:05:23
Speaker
Like it's, I like that scene a lot because it has those layers. And also like the third layer ah is like Shane wants to just talk about hockey. Like he, he's here for just hockey only. like past the other two reasons for why he might be uncomfortable with this question. I liked that scene a lot for those layers, yeah but I think like I clocked it again, it's about like clocking these things. Like I clocked it, but I i feel like I saw a real, or i I, yeah, I would see like edits with this scene and being like, oh, he's in his rookie season. He's already being compared to Tiger Woods and Serena Williams. that He's just that good. And I'm like, no that's not why he's being compared to Tiger Woods and Serena Williams. Also Serena Williams is the GOAT. Yeah. like If you're making those comparisons, it feels like kind of random. like why Also, Tiger Woods, kind of a piece of shit person. Why would you compare it? We have to think like during 2011, Tiger Woods was kind of like... But then why not pull like other rookies? Like why not make those comparisons? Or like they like didn't they reference a real life hockey player at one point, right? You know, was saying like, oh, this guy or no, no. Was that just like that was like in the French subtitle of an
01:06:38
Speaker
I'm in too deep. Guys, I'm in too deep. But I think the French subtitling like translated something that Yuna said as like referencing a specific... We eventually do need to make an episode about the awful subtitling in HBO in many, many different languages. Because...
01:06:58
Speaker
ah ah Me and my students are studying this in the translation emphasis because a lot of them are watching shows on HBO and watching Hitted Rivalry and we are complaining about it.
01:07:11
Speaker
i i agree with you, Ethan. I did clocked it and to me was like this white reporter... This is the equivalent of asking a woman athlete about their hair routine. You know, like, yep of course you're asking this because you did not do your homework. You're not asking about all the other stuff of a rookie season. You're just like, are you facing the racism, TM? The racism TM? Is it something you're going through? Have you talked to your doctor? yeah ah ah racism and I'm gonna i'm goingnna think about the only two racialized athletes that I can name because they didn't leave me another option than to know them. You know, like... They were so good in their games that I need to know about them. But it's like basically name a woman. Like name a racialized athlete that is not the Williams sisters in Tiger Woods.
01:08:15
Speaker
Please. Name a black person. can you do it? Name a black person. Yeah. ah So it was very layered and it made sense because he would get that in real life. Like that is what that is what people of color, women, queer people get when they are famous. Those are the stupid questions that they have to face. Yeah. So yeah. But again, people don't clock it because because then Ilya is like, oh, you're so perfect. You're speaking French. And people are not reheating this enough.
01:08:49
Speaker
yeah You need to redo your homework, listeners. I don't think it's even that people are not reading this enough. I think it's just that people don't have better media literacy, which is what's in the soapbox I get on every episode of this podcast. we mentioned As we have mentioned in the past.
01:09:07
Speaker
Y'all don't read enough anymore. and you don't don't read things that will challenge you. You just read to like have pseudo-intellectualism. um but anyways anyways i think this is a good segue into talking about the fandom and then i think we'll come back and talk about like the future and the like the casting and stuff for season two because i mean ethan you are like literally talking about how heated rivalry fandom comes and attacks you for talking about race. There's currently yeah an issue going on right now in the heated rivalry fandom where Jacob and Rachel Reed made some microaggressions against Hudson yesterday BookCon, I think, on a panel.
01:09:50
Speaker
And there is once again, this kind of, this is now like the third or fourth time we've had to talk about race in this fandom. And for some reason, it's still not clocking to people. Yeah. Like anything. Like yeah I'm still fighting with people on threads. Like all I do is copy and paste. Like you cannot tell people of color how to respond to microaggressions or racism. Like as a white person, you can't do that.
01:10:13
Speaker
yeahp Yeah. And I'll go one step further and say, even if you are a person of color, just because you don't take offense to something or you don't realize that something is offensive that doesn't make it not offensive. Because again, like in the comments of my videos, I got a few people who were like, I'm Asian and I don't care. Like, that's fine. And I'm like, okay, you well, I'm Asian and I do care. So now what? so So now what? like that That happens so much. Like people, like Colombian people will be like, I don't mind when US people say, coluia write it Columbia. I don't have fund get offended by that. And I'm like, good for you. Do you want a gold star for being like the perfect little friend of the white empire?
01:11:00
Speaker
<unk> like empire or what and i'm like you're not and this is something we said at the beginning like in one of our first episodes like just because you are queer doesn't mean to you that you get to hold the narrative of what being queer is of what other queer people might feel with this representation you need to enter the conversation because we're not a monolith like Asian people are not a monolith, people are going to feel different about stuff. That doesn't mean that your point, Ethan, is not valid because someone who came from somewhere else in Asia does not agree. Like that is what makes the conversation interesting is that we have different perspectives of it. Not that, oh, I vouch for the Asians of the world and saying this is not a microaggression. Mm
01:11:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm not exactly sure what was said about like that was a microaggression towards Hudson. okay. I just didn't know what was said. i I don't know. However, I do know that it was like specifically a racial microaggression, which like I found this like thread on threads from Pedro Paro 2. And they said like a lot of people, they're talking kind of overall about like the master thread of every bad argument, like referencing the heated rivalry book, Conflub. And they said, people will be like, this is chirping. This is just affection. So Pedro Paro says, I get it.
01:12:33
Speaker
But we're looking at impact here, not intent. Yeah. Their impact was that they used racially charged, demeaning language to joke about someone who was not there as his boss in a professional setting in front of a very white crowd during a very white event. After all of those months of neglecting to answer or address the racialized harm thrown at the same actor that chased him off of the web, actively downplaying it whenever the question was raised. I have black and brown friends who, this is the person speaking, who I make depreciating comments to as a show of affection. But I am not going to go up on stage during one of the biggest of creative events of the year and in the capacity of being someone's boss, call my brown friends stupid because we like to roast each other in the group chat.
01:13:20
Speaker
This isn't a group chat. You are representing them. And when you are representing an off, disrespected, marginalized person to a biased public, it is your job to model treating them with respect. Absolutely. Exactly. That was everything. I'm like, ah come on, y'all. And I think that this, if we can go back to like Rick Riordan and stuff, like I think that with the adaptation of the Percy Jackson TV series, like him going to bat for the kids that have faced a lot of hate, which is a whole separate discussion in and of itself, but like not making jokes. I mean, and I get that these are kids, so it is a different discussion, but it's still like, there's a discussion happening there, but like,
01:13:57
Speaker
you will not say anything about the race. You will not make any sort of comments. Like the mouse will get you if you say something like that. Like, I think that bringing up even the professional capacity, like, yeah, you can joke around about like whatever someone's personality and stuff, but as soon as you bring their identity into it, I think that that is crossing a line and a boundary. And I think that the Percy Jackson adaptation has set some good examples of this, of how everyone on the cast and crew and behind the scenes and everyone who works on that show will fight like hell for these kids. And that, They're not kids. They're a- oh.
01:14:28
Speaker
You're talking about Percy Jackson. was like, no, no, no. These are adults. I know. I'm not being super be clear. But that's kind of the example I'm using of the, like, these people will fight for these people that are facing hate and facing, like, struggle, like, real-life struggle due to this work and due to their portrayal in this show. And the fact that even though, like I said, they're adults in heated rivalry, it's You should still go to bat for your colleagues. If they're your friends, you should still be sticking up for them and not giving into it. Because now that people can use that as an excuse of like, oh, it's just tripping. Like I can make fun of Hudson because it's just tripping. You just fed the parasocialism. Like it's right. And the whole people are, you know, that this is not an isolated incident. This is like routinely how Jacob and Rachel speak about ra Hudson. like And so it's symptomatic of a larger problem.
01:15:13
Speaker
Yeah. And again, even if that's how they are treating, or like not treating, but like if they have that kind of relationship with Hudson, again, like, yeah, I joke with my friends all the time. Like you're friends with people, you you know, when you know someone, you know what they're okay and not okay with. And you can have that conversation. Like if if you say something that they don't like, you have that conversation right then and there because you have a personal relationship to them. But what's different with like BookCon, again, like this professional thing of like Hudson's not there and you're on stage and you're recording this. Like this is going out to people who have no relationship with you guys, who if they start saying this stuff about Hudson,
01:15:55
Speaker
Hudson can't come up and like be like, don't say that about me because he doesn't know you. Like you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be perpetuating that harm and, and he's just not gonna be there to say that this is wrong. Like you're just gonna internalize that and you won't have any pushback. Right. And in a fandom where, as I've mentioned, we've already had issues of racism, like ah multiple times, like Hudson getting overtly racist comments on Instagram, on Instagram, websites, the statements that he and Francois had put out that also started a very big chat and fandom about Like how Hudson wasn't being defended by his like white co-workers and they were not speaking up for him. And it felt like Hudson was having to take the initiative as a person of color to speak up for himself about racism, which was a whole nother side to things. I think like we really need Jacob and Rachel to come out and say, this is not okay. Make that address. And stop with these microaggressions. Ethan, I know you want to jump in with some thoughts about like microaggressions, but then also like Jacob defending, not defending, things like that. So go for it. Take it away. Yeah, about Jacob defending or not defending in this situation, we've seen him defend them because that there was that interview where the interviewer asked about their sexualities and Jacob immediately stepped in was like, we're not answering that question.
01:17:22
Speaker
we don't need We don't need to discuss this. So right clearly, again, capable. you know he's he's He's been around in the industry for a while. He knows how this works. it's an if he wanted to he would situation and it's like why is Hudson and why are Hudson and Francois the ones doing this like why is there's no management involved what's going on here there's more from this thread that I would love to read like because I think Jacob Tierney kind of falls along this like oh stop like you're making like
01:17:55
Speaker
this community so divisive. Like that's how it feels like this language that he constantly kind of considers continues to use. And Pedro Paro writes like, and this is an indication of whose perspective you see as defaults because you know who demonstrably and statistically has to walk on eggshells in the workplace lest they be socially punished way more. Marginalized people.
01:18:16
Speaker
Explicitisms and microaggression are reported to be one of the leading causes of workplace burnout and people quitting their jobs. And not being able to find racialized workers who fit within the workplace culture is one of the leading reasons why majority white workplaces often fail diversity audits. white people feeling like they have to walk on eggshells, cost racialized people, their mental health and their jobs. But it's for some reason, the white people who are the victims here. It's not the white, it's the white people who we are making unreasonable requests of, and whose discomfort is being prioritized. And so I think this is, I think this also comes off in the way that Rachel and Jacob kind of talk about Hudson and his race.
01:18:55
Speaker
So, yeah. yeah So I think one of the last things I kind of want to talk about in this, like in fandom is that I have seen all over threads, like black, brown, indigenous folks, like openly discussing that they don't participate in heated rivalry fandom online anymore, that they like read the fix and like consume the TV show and don't like look at anything else. And like, I have seen so many people online be like, Hudson is like the main reason why I feel like I'm so drawn to this because I love him as a person and I love him as an actor. And he has given Shane so much characterization that Shane doesn't have. Like Hudson has built that character. And so like the reasons why I am returning to this fandom over and over again is because I love him and I love what he's done. And so, but I feel like,
01:19:48
Speaker
that the fandom is openly hostile to people of color. And I felt that too. Like when we when Hudson and Francois had like put out their statements like a couple of months ago, I was on threads and like one night it was all about racism. And the next morning I got on, And I'm sure this is some of my algorithm, but everybody was back to like cottage posting like, oh my God, I just did a re-eat, like look at this. And I was like, wait, are we just like, what is going on? Like something horrible just happened and you guys are just flipping the script, like no problem. What is going on?
01:20:18
Speaker
So I don't know, what are y'all's thoughts kind of there? I think that this goes back to a lot of what we've been talking about. like We've seen this reiterated in other facets like through Ethan's comments where people are like, why are you putting racism into my fandom object? like why are you putting it Why are you being woke? And I think that it's that's so intrinsically tied up to a lot of the fandom won't recognize that. and like actively refuses it and then therefore will not engage with like fans of color and like people who are like, oh, I have this experience or I relate to Shane this way and like this this cycle just keeps perpetuating itself. And I think that those things are so intrinsically tied and that's why I like...
01:20:56
Speaker
That's why this keeps happening is because people don't have critical thinking skills like we've been saying and won't listen to other fans and then you just get discourse because I feel like also people get in this head they're like oh internet fight, internet fight, discourse, discourse, discourse and have no application to a real world setting or like they don't understand that there are, while there are lots of bots, there are real people on the other side of this who are seeing what you're saying, who are seeing like these thoughts and are just like, they're I also think people are like are disengaging because it's like, I don't want to see you arguing over my identity. I don't want to see you arguing over my body. like This has already happened so much in politics in the real world and to have this happen in fandom, I feel like can be disheartening where it's like, not to say that you can't have discourse about race, but I'm saying that where people are anti being woke, I guess is what I'd call it. And they'd say like, if you can't be woke for this fandom, you can't be woke for me and therefore I won't participate in this community with you. That's some of my first initial thoughts that are rambling about that. I would agree with that.
01:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that. I was before we were recording, I was talking about how I'm on embargo. Which means that my friends all know that I don't want to see pictures. i don't want to see posts. I don't want to see anything about heated rivalry. And in the beginning, that was because of like The obsession was just too much. i was like, I need to like control myself and not have this in my face 24 seven. But it slowly evolved. Like once all the discourse started and like once I started posting critical videos and like getting like comments or like just, yeah.
01:22:33
Speaker
i don't know, calling them hate comments. I don't know. Weird comments, bad comments. Comments I didn't like to see in my inbox. Then I was like, okay, kind of like, it's not fun to be in this fandom anymore. It's not fun to like talk about this book with people because I have no idea what kind of people they actually are. i thought we all...
01:22:51
Speaker
you know, loved these characters and wanted to create a space where we could love these characters and like all feel welcome. I thought we could create like an actual fandom, but ah that quickly devolved. Yeah.
Microaggressions in Books and TV
01:23:06
Speaker
But I think like, because the books are so microaggressive and the show is an improvement, but there's still work to be done. Yeah.
01:23:17
Speaker
And then on top of that, like the in real life response to Hudson. It's just very weird to be in a in a fandom that, or like to to read fan fiction and to be like, they're writing about Shane the way that Rachel Reed is writing about Shane, which is...
01:23:37
Speaker
technically in a fandom, that's something that you want, right? You're like, oh, this book is so good. I feel like the original author wrote it or this fic is so good. I feel like the original author wrote it. That's typically a a compliment, you know? But in heated rivalries case, it doesn't feel that way. Like I'm reading something and I'm like, now i'm I'm worried about this author and like what they think about people of color and how they- how they've internalized this book and how they've internalized Shane's character. On the flip side, there are some really beautiful fics that people have written that actually explore Shane's experience being Asian Canadian. So there's definitely, there's even like, I'll shout out this artist as soon as I remember their actual URL. But there's this one, not URL, wow, the Tumblr really jumped out. The Tumblr really jumped out there. Guys, my first fans were all on Tumblr. No real! Ethan, what were they? Tell us! Percy Jackson. Thank you for the like!
01:24:45
Speaker
percy jackson like beautiful one was yeah yeah you know But this ah this fan artist, Haydralix, made this beautiful fan comic called Stick Handling that is it's just beautiful. It's on Instagram and it's about like Shane using chopsticks and Ilya being like, I want to learn how to use chopsticks from you.
Meaningful Representation Challenges
01:25:10
Speaker
And then... Shane kind of going into his history of like learning how to use chopsticks and like his i like that just that very small piece of his identity. And I was like, this is beautiful. It's so beautiful.
01:25:24
Speaker
I mean, it's like it's not it's not very long. It's but I don't want to spoil it. But there's like this beautiful parallel. It's called stick handling, right? There's a beautiful parallel between chopsticks and hockey sticks. Yeah, I really like that. It's just really Yeah, it's really great. And you will be giving us the link so we can share it with our listeners. Of course. Of course I will be doing that. And also with ourselves, yeah. And also with ourselves. That is for me, thank you. Most importantly. No, and I think i think that is one place that the fic is really great. I've read a lot of really great fics where Shane interacts with being Asian, being Japanese. I mean, some of them have been Yakuza fix, you know, which is a whole, a whole other side of fandom that we don't need to get into right now. But I think there is, i think there is a desire in some of the fandom, at least to have more meaningful representation. i think this also points us really well to looking at the future kind of. And i think I want to call back to like something that you said, Ethan, earlier about like, You don't want it to feel like Rachel Reid as she takes on Unrivaled because she has said that she is going to take some time to address kind of the race issues that she has not addressed for two books. in Unrivaled and that's one of the reasons why it got pushed back like what you said Ethan like I don't want to see it like very stereotyped or like like pandering in some way shape or form to further describe Shane's race because I think like also this is a hypothesis that I've had in the past but like if he's more like
01:27:06
Speaker
exposed to his race or talks about his race Unrivaled, but there's no movement made by Rachel Reed or Jacob Tierney to better protect Hudson from racism in fandom, then don't include it. Because we see how much Hudson, how much hate Hudson is already getting for just being like visibly Asian and a few throwaway lines. Right. Like I always have said, and I've said before on this, like on this podcast that like uneducated allies are almost as detrimental to movements as like the opposite side that of whatever, like you are fighting for, because like,
01:27:52
Speaker
If we all of a sudden go and we give a like Shane, all of this like Asian background and people are like, Oh my God, the representation's there, but we don't do all of the work on the other side of it. It's pointless, right? Like it doesn't improve anything. It doesn't stop the racism. It needs to have some kind of substance behind it. And but I think that's one of the things that I really hope for, for the future I don't think Rachel Reid can be trusted to do that. And I don't think Jacob Tierney can be trusted either, unfortunately.
01:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of have similar thoughts about Unrivaled and how how race will be addressed in Unrivaled because I kind of, I mean, i kind of don't want to see, i don't, I'm like anything she includes now is going to feel like pandering to me. If it's not like the most tasteful, the most sensitive representation of like the Japanese Canadian experience, it's just going to feel so shoehorned. And like she did it because she got backlash.
Writing Outside Personal Experience
01:28:57
Speaker
Right.
01:28:58
Speaker
but Like, and like you said, representation from, from uneducated allies, if it's like, if it's bad representation, i don't want it. hmm. Like I would, I would honestly rather, well, I mean, now you can't make Shane white, but I i but i mean, like in general, I think like if you are an author, an artist, a creator of any kind, and you don't take like the time to really research that,
01:29:31
Speaker
the like ethnicity that you are trying to portray if it's an ethnicity outside of your own or like any kind of experience outside of your own if you're just doing it because like I don't know you like the aesthetic or whatever reason you might have for including a character from a different background than yours then it's like, I would rather you just write characters that share your experience. I would rather like, no, I feel like there's, I feel like this is just an ongoing conversation in the book community in general of like the writing outside of what you know, like, do I stick to, do i like, or I'm thinking of this quote actually by R.F. Kwong, who is the author of Babel and Yellowface and who's like an academic her own right.
01:30:17
Speaker
but she is very pro writing outside of your own experience because she, like I don't want to misquote her, but she was saying like, if we limit ourselves and we limit the kinds of stories that we tell, then like what even is the point of storytelling? If we're just telling like our own lived experience, then what is the point of writing fiction? Which i do see on the one hand, but on the other hand, when when there is like bad, I'll speak just for myself, like when there is bad Indian representation or harmful Indian representation in like a book that's just unaddressed. People like internalize that. You you see like representation is critical. Representation of experiences other than our own is critical to how we view the world, which I feel like we've been saying this whole time. But it's like how how we experience other people's lives. So if we experience them in a way that's not accurate to how those lives are lived, then then I don't like I would rather it's just not included at all. Like if if I'm going to walk in someone's shoes, I want them to fit them.
01:31:28
Speaker
you know? who so Yeah. And I think it's not that it's not possible as, as like, as we were saying, well like, what is the point of storytelling? It's just that it requires the acknowledgement of responsibility, you know, like, You need to know that if you do this, you need to do it well.
01:31:47
Speaker
And there's a lot of say at stake. And i I also don't think that we can trust Rachel. i i still want to be surprised and to be proven wrong, at least by by the show crew.
01:32:02
Speaker
Because fortunately, like even if I say like after this month trusting Jacob, it's not something that is happening in my brain. i You will hope that someone else involved in production, at least in what it's like, in in what touches the way the story is told, would make it better. i'm like, why why aren't we like normalizing getting sensitivity readers? Why aren't we like reaching out to people?
01:32:30
Speaker
Like, just acknowledge that you don't know about it, but that you want to learn because you do see the importance in representation. and acknowledge that you might have blind blind spots that you're completely not touching because you don't know they're there.
01:32:51
Speaker
And of course, this goes beyond that, because I don't think that you can, in this day and age, being an educated person, like not think about maybe like you might not know what would be the best way to address certain points, but you should be able to notice that you're missing that.
01:33:13
Speaker
yeah and i and I blamed Rachel and I blamed the editors like how do you go through all of that and nobody said like and and we know how because I know the publishing industry is not great but I'm like now now that there's backlash I don't want pandering I want you to do the work I want someone who knows about this to be involved like we have the excellent we're praising Rick Riordan ah thisette white guy though Yeah. And as Erica and Carter in Seaweed Brain podcast have discussed so many times, the inclusion of Marco Schiro to write the Nico series, that was clever.
01:34:00
Speaker
that that That gave so much depth. to the queer marginalized identity of Nico and to this whole discourse about the hierarchization of this universe and how we consider some lives more worthy than the others and that's how you do this you use community as a way to learn and to do better by your readers and and your viewers and i was actually talking about this with my students today my my students are starting the the translation emphasis in the program some of them were like okay so how can i tell what should i translate and what i shouldn't and i was like you like the idea of this emphasis is for you to like develop some principles and i was like and i know that i like i won't translate a zionist pamphlet because I don't want that out there, you know? i don't agree with that. Also, there are things that I agree with that I want out there that I won't translate because it's not my place to do it because there's stuff I'm going to miss.
01:35:09
Speaker
There's stuff I'm not going to understand properly. And if I was forced to translate certain things because of lack of resources in some situation, i would want a team.
01:35:21
Speaker
You know, like I bring the like the linguistic knowledge, but I need someone else to bring the other knowledge because I know I'm lacking it. So that was that was something we discussed today. And I think for writing, like we imagine writing as this very individual and solitary work.
01:35:40
Speaker
And it is you need to write in community. You need to be in constant conversation with peers that are not exactly like yourself.
Diverse Storytelling Teams
01:35:50
Speaker
Because you need someone to point out, like, this makes no sense. And notably, I was just looking through the heated rivalry IMDB. There's no, like, they have one person of color on, like, their main production staff. And it's all white writers and it's all white production. Yippee!
01:36:09
Speaker
And so I think that is, ah that also makes me scared when we think about season two, because there are more characters of color in season two. we've It's been confirmed that season two covers both Game Changers and the long game.
01:36:24
Speaker
And if that is true, then we we'll get people like Fabian Salah and like even Booth is Booth. You said, you said Long Game and you said Game Changers and Long Game. I think you meant. Oh, yeah.
01:36:35
Speaker
role model in long game or yeah role model in long game. Yeah. Bood is a person of color. I'm pretty sure. Boodram from long game. Which I didn't clock by the way, the amount of times i would read a book, read like through a game changers book and be like, wait a minute, that was a person of color this whole time. No, literally. Right. Exactly. yeah So it just makes me nervous about casting and the way that they're going to address race and things in the future, which I think, I think we've definitely, you know, admitted to. Yeah, I think they still keep like a lot of undiscovered talent and like not unknown people. I think that is where they will find strength in this. Like I know Hida Revelry has really like exploded and like just almost everyone knows about it, it feels like. But I don't think they that gives them an excuse to start putting like stars in it. I think this is a great opportunity to... cast like young just like a Hudson and Conor like people who were just on just like working so hard and just on the verge of giving up and then you know breaking out like this I think use utilizing this like large ah it almost has like a worldwide presence you like using this large which I don't know that it does but I know that like this large audience and this large stage to showcase some really really great actors yeah that are not white I think this is a great opportunity for them and to Kind of fix some of the stuff we've been talking about here with their caveat. They might still commit microaggressions against people, but I think not whitewashing them would be a great opportunity for them and to uplift these voices and to help break some of these people out onto this giant stage that they've
Unlearning Biases and Microaggressions
01:38:07
Speaker
made.
01:38:07
Speaker
Yep. And I think that maybe if they do, i mean, i don't think for next season, because we would know about it. But a lot of a lot of projects have been very wise at including the main actors as producers eventually, especially when those actors live the experience of a marginalized community of their characters as well. And they can bring a lot to the table because they have been studying that character and bringing it to life. So I am dreaming of a future where shane and e where Hudson and Connor are maybe more than just like the actors.
01:38:49
Speaker
I know that not everyone wants to be a producer or anything, but that they might have a seat at the table to discuss how these characters are written and how we are going to like...
01:39:00
Speaker
portray them beyond like their individual actual decisions on set you know like we we need a less wide production team definitely we definitely need a less wide publishing industry t We need to less white everything, honestly. agree. You know what? Yep.
01:39:23
Speaker
and Is there anything else that we would like to add? i think I think we have done all the things, but anything else people want to add? But to what Lau was saying about us having blind spots, obviously, like, the nature of a blind spot is that we don't know what we're missing, but we know that we have them, right? We know that we have the blind spot, and so we can take the time to, like, find those blind spots, and like find the unconscious bias, find the unintentional microaggressions and work to unlearn them. Like just because something is is blind, like or is in your blind spot for now doesn't mean it always has to be there. And it can't be used as an excuse to keep like perpetrating microaggressions or harm against marginalized communities. No, for sure. I called somebody out on threads today and I was literally like, hey, by the way, why people I am so shocked.
01:40:14
Speaker
yeah Crazy that i said I called somebody out on threads and I was like, hey, if people are people of color are saying they don't like how a white person is talking about a person of color. It's your job to listen to them and not validate their experience. Hope
Ethan's Fan Studies and Closing
01:40:27
Speaker
this helps. And so the person responded one way and then like 30 minutes later, they were like, I have been told I'm wrong and this is actually a microaggression. I did not know that and I would like to apologize. And I was like, this is a therapy that everybody else needs. Also, love that.
01:40:45
Speaker
on threads people immediately assume that every time i talk about racism i am a person of color and then i get to be like well i'm white but a wild people assume a lot of things about you on threads i've had i've had to go to war to defend you joining the race war on the side of the white people ah Imagine, can you believe it Me defending U.S. white person.
01:41:20
Speaker
Ethan, I will fight in your comments for you. let me loose. Let me loose. I'll go for it. Lauren, did you have to change our our your threads bio to be like run by Lauren or something? well, okay. So like, I mean, basically my PhD is in fan studies and I constantly am like on threads. I'm like, hey, I know what I'm talking about because I have a PhD in thread fan studies. And sometimes people are like, you're not an expert because you have a PhD in fan studies. Um, then what, what possibly could constitute an expert in that case? I would love to know. i would methan Excellent question.
01:41:57
Speaker
I am not only a PhD in fan studies, but I have 20 years in fandom. So I think I am an expert maybe at this point in my life. I mean, I'm always learning and I love, I love that, but, um, I don't know. I, I'll be more than, i'm ah more of an expert, but. Okay, nobody else has anything to add?
01:42:12
Speaker
I just wanted to thank Ethan. This was so great. I've been waiting since January for this. so Oh my God. edit it and i'm So, so, so happy that we finally got to talk about this with you. Because i I love how you see things. I love how you explain it as well. Because some people have good opinions, but have no idea how to express them.
01:42:38
Speaker
And you do very, very good in both sides of the of the analysis. So I love you. That's very that's very kind. They're like teachers pet in me is so happy. know Getting their validation is awesome.
01:42:55
Speaker
the ah The gifted kid to praise kick pipeline has been satisfied this night. Listen, now you can look now you can say, like, we are professors, Lauren and I. So now, like, it's an actual professor telling you, good job. Yeah, job you. No, that, I'm, like, I'm very, very grateful to be here. This was, like, such a lovely conversation. I've, like, I've been so frustrated with the heated rivalry fandom and, like, how race is perceived and discussed. And this was just, like, this is just such a good conversation.
01:43:30
Speaker
conversation yeah no i genuinely think this is like one of our best episodes thank you so much for coming out yeah um do you have anything you would like to share with our listeners about where they can find you on socials or anything like that yes so i am on most social media with the username ethan with two n's ku i'm most active on instagram i do have a tick tock I cross post everything.
01:44:00
Speaker
And ah when did you say this episode was going to come out? I think in two weeks. Let me check this eighth. the eighth okay because i can also plug my bindery page i just got one also i don't know if you guys know what that is no tell me so it's like a bookish patreon um and they also they're like they're so cool if you want to like get a look at people like actually changing the publishing industry because they basically their model is um they like
01:44:32
Speaker
take influencers and like turn them into not editors but like tastemakers who select manuscripts and then like publish them with their own imprints and it's like very audience interactive um and they publish like majority authors of color and like queer authors it's really it's really really cool so cool but like the lower end like The lower end of it, that they have like the publishing part of it, but then on the other side, they also just have like a Patreon page essentially like, but it's through their own website. So I will be launching that soon, but I'll plug it because I think this will come out after i have that up. and if not stay tuned to your socials for for launching that yeah and congratulations on that and also graduating yeah thank you oh yeah you're doing so much big moves big money moves in the world yeah maybe be an adult crazy ah i don't know what that is i'm sure you do your google scholar page says you do according to my therapist i'm still an adolescence
01:45:39
Speaker
Everybody's 12, including Lauren. um Exactly. Okay, well, thank you again for coming on. We really appreciate this. We will be right back with some fan mail.
01:46:00
Speaker
Okay, so I'm sure you all remember, but we always do fan mail or we try to always do fan mail on our episodes. If you want to ever send in fan mail, you can do that on any of our socials or you can do it to our email, which is srspod at protonmail.com. And you can always send it there as well. Today, we got a piece of fan mail from Susan, not my Susan, but it's another Susan. And so I'm going let Amanda take it away.
01:46:26
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really great email, and going read the whole thing. First of all, Susan shares that her first fandoms were queer as folk and Heartstopper, which I thought was really fun. Lau was very excited to hear about that. But she writes, my other thought was from the end of the episode and is about Shane's race as portrayed in Heated Rivalry. One thing has been on my mind a lot is that Rachel Reed chose to wrote a character of color in Shane, but she did choose a character who has the closest proximity to whiteness, half white, half Asian, and colorism is of course very real. Shane, without dark skin and having a western last name, is going to for sure face less systemic racism and overt racism than black players, for example. Plus, he's one of the top two players in the league, and so he has privilege there.
01:47:09
Speaker
Then, of course, the whole model minority pressure means that he may face more privilege there. but you know Model minority pressure means he may face more acceptance from white people, fans, players, owners, etc., but also more pressure for perfection, which I think is touched on in the show, but certainly not gone into deeply. I'm not an actual hockey fan, but I do have the reference of being a huge baseball fan, and I do know that NHL and MLB share a lot of values, unfortunately. I have zero doubt that the Asian players in the MLB, whose numbers have increased a lot in recent years, experience all sorts of racism, microaggressions, systemic oppression, bias, and stereotyping. But I will say the and MLB culture is very much not to talk about those things or to downplay them.
01:47:48
Speaker
I noticed that Shane deflects questions about race in the interview about Tiger and Serena. It's clear he's a character that for now himself probably doesn't want to talk about race even though of course I completely agree he definitely does experience racism. I have noticed that in the MLB people don't want to talk about the realities of race and the Asian players themselves have not been publicly outspoken.
01:48:07
Speaker
Shohai Otani, for example, you may know is arguably the biggest MLB star on the planet right now. It's true that he gets tons of and endorsement deals and is hugely popular here, but it's also true that he has downplayed any overt acts of racism he has experienced and just generally avoids the subject, even though he undoubtedly experiences less overt forms too.
01:48:25
Speaker
In that respect, I do see Shane's approach as somewhat realistic because a lot of players just don't want to speak up. I do wish Rachel had shown more examples of racism in the NHL to us as readers as Shane undoubtedly experiences them.
01:48:37
Speaker
And I think this encapsulates, sorry, end thought. I think this really encapsulates a lot of what we discussed here, and I'm glad that it wasn't just us that picked up on it that other people in the fandom are picking up on this.
01:48:48
Speaker
And yeah, I do think that this is really common across sports culture. um I'm not surprised at all. And the fact that there are real world examples for this is to me, like i I'm just like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Right. And to also compare it to baseball, which has a very high amount of like Latine players in it as well, where like many baseball players come From countries in the Caribbean, from like Puerto Rico, like the Dominican Republic, like a lot of these places that we talked about, even in this episode a little bit. I think for them to not address racism when it's, you know, maybe more baseball players are players of color. It's like even very different to look at the NHL versus the MLB, just from what I know about baseball.
01:49:37
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciate this this email because without knowing it, Susan is is kind of in the same wavelength that all of us today in this episode. Of course, I'm very happy about the Queer as Falk and Heartstopper reference in the email. I do think that the issue, as Susan is also pointing out, is not the lack of realism in Shane's portrayal. It's, as we were saying with Ethan earlier, the if so, then why? Like, it makes a lot of sense that Shane is dodging that question.
01:50:13
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense that he is not... complaining, ah like openly complaining about it, even to like Ilya later on, what doesn't make sense is the lack of addressing the issue that we have in the in the series. As Susan pointed out, like we really wish that Rachel had explored that.
01:50:33
Speaker
And exploring it not always means that the character thinks ah like thinks it or agrees with that point of view. Exploring it means to see how those tensions work and what they do to the character like what does the denial of these issues mean for Shane as he navigates this industry first as a rookie and then later on as the legend that he becomes so so yeah I I think there's a lot of again a lot of work to be done
01:51:06
Speaker
Will it be done? We will see. We doubt it. But we appreciate your input. Susan, I strongly agree with with what you were saying. like It makes sense that he will do it.
01:51:19
Speaker
I just wish that we had had some exploration on why it makes sense. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think this is a lot of like what we similarly addressed with Ethan, like this idea that like, does Shane not want to address his race at all? Like we don't know anything about Shane and his race, because we haven't been given any of it at all.
01:51:40
Speaker
And so yeah, I think it's going to be interesting to see how things are addressed in Unrivaled and in future seasons of the television series. series Absolutely. i think, that are those all of our thoughts? Yeah, I think so.
01:51:52
Speaker
Thank you again to to Susan for that fan mail. And once again, thank you so, so, so much for Ethan. Go follow them wherever. Please check that out. But also if you're on socials, check us out. We are on Instagram and threads at since rookie season pod. And we are on Twitter at SRS pod. You can email us at SRS pod at proton mail.com. We, i I, will note that i we will see your email. Sometimes sometimess it might take us a couple of days to respond just because i want to get input from the others and I need to fit email time into my work-life balance but yes thank you so much for for tuning in we this was an one of honestly one of my favorite episodes ever I think this is one of our best ones to come out yeah um so I'm really excited to edit this and get this out to y'all and we will be back next week for an episode on neurodivergence with a couple guests and some of our close friends so very excited to get that together friends of pod friends of Pod. Thank you. Alright, we'll see you all next week.
01:52:53
Speaker
Thanks for listening.