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BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
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LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between shapewear, fears and President Trump.
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LUSE: I know, I know. How are all of these things connected? Well, we're going to find out with Emma Specter - she's an author and culture writer for Vogue Magazine - and Kate Manne. She's an author and philosophy professor at Cornell University. Emma, Kate, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.
EMMA SPECTER: Thank you.
KATE MANNE: Thanks so much for having me.
LUSE: So good to have you both. Just out of curiosity, what is your favorite thing to be?
MANNE: I would say rational, kind, hopefully, and political.
LUSE: Ooh, I like those. Those are good descriptors.
SPECTER: I would say on time, because it so rarely happens, honestly.
LUSE: That is amazing. I could never say that about myself (laughter). So I really admire that in others. Well, let me set the scene for what we're going to unpack here.
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LUSE: Last week, a micro-influencer, who goes by the username Slim Kim, found her 15 seconds of fame when she uploaded a video to TikTok about her favorite thing to be.
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SLIM KIM: My favorite thing to be is skinny. It is my favorite thing to be, and it is my favorite fear to not be. And this is just for me personally. This is all personal to me. But I just wanted to say it out loud because, honestly, it's all I think about.
LUSE: Shakespeare couldn't have written a better line himself. This set off a wave of classic internet discourse around whether these comments were an expression of body positivity or just another face to fat-shaming. Critics of Slim Kim have called the comment gauche and claimed that it uplifts body fascism, but defenders are calling it a matter of personal taste and asking what's so wrong with loving being skinny? Slim Kim is only one of a growing number of influencers to make these kinds of comments in recent months. And with semaglutides like Ozempic and Wegovy now being prescribed for weight loss, I feel like we've all noticed a shift in how we talk about each other's bodies. It's left me wondering. When it comes to fatphobia, why are so many people getting comfortable with saying the quiet part out loud?
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LUSE: So I want to ask both of you, Emma, Kate, what is so wrong with loving being skinny? Or, in other words, what do you hear Slim Kim saying between the lines?
SPECTER: I think when I hear Slim Kim or anyone saying that they love being skinny, the flip side of that is I fear being fat, or I hate what I've constructed around the idea of fatness. And I think it's also sending a pretty clear message to the rest of us that our bodies need to look like that, too.
LUSE: 'Cause it's more than just creating community. It's kind of reinforcing this kind of beauty mandate. Kate, what about you? What do you hear in Slim Kim saying skinny is her favorite thing to be?
MANNE: Yeah, I mean, I think I feel similarly to Emma. And what I think was particularly obnoxious about it, if you unpack it, is saying I really enjoy this form of unjust privilege that places me at a major advantage over people who are larger than me when it comes to all sorts of aspects of life that are important. I mean, it's true that it is often easier for thin people when it comes to employment and education and certainly health care. But the answer to that is not just revel in one person's thinness. It's to make the world accessible to all and to dismantle systems of oppression.
LUSE: One thing I found interesting was that even before Kim posted her video, there were other people recently expressing this kind of sentiment about fat bodies. To share some of these quotes with you...
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Not worrying that people are going to be judging me when I walk out the door solely based on the size of my body? Pretty great. So I'm going to own that I like being skinnier.
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ESHA JAVED: I'm so tired of my old fan base. I don't give a [expletive] about your identity politics. I voted for Trump, and I hate fat people.
LUSE: These two quotes are a big departure from the body positivity movement that ruled the last decade. What is and what isn't a, quote-unquote, "good body" has always been a culturally shifting ideal. I think we can all agree on that. But is all this content indicative of that ideal shifting? And if so, what is influencing that shift? Emma, I'd love to hear from you first.
SPECTER: I think this just reminds me that it can take so little, quote-unquote, "progress" to incite a cultural backlash. What might seem to some like this inflated amount of body positivity, it's a relatively small slice of what the cultural discourse has been. And yet it's engendering this outsized reaction and then set the stage for kind of, well, if you're proud of being fat, I'm proud of being thin, and we're bringing thin back. And I frankly don't think thin ever went anywhere, really.
LUSE: I am inclined to agree with that. It seems like thin's been pretty omnipresent, at least for my entire life. But I'd love to hear from you on this, Kate. What do you think is influencing this shift we're seeing in body ideals back toward thinness?
MANNE: I think as well as the backlash that we're seeing to that moment of body positivity, I think there is also this technological aspect of it, where the advent of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have meant that there is this now means for some people with means of accessing thinness in a new way. And because that takes capital, it takes money, it takes socioeconomic status to access, it is now a marker of elevated socioeconomic status to be very, very thin or to lose weight. And so I think that that is part of why we've seen this trend towards greater thinness than ever, because, frankly, it's a sign that you can afford a drug that will shrink you down to size.
LUSE: Or even if you aren't exploring weight loss drugs, fitness trainers and, you know, 24/7 access to fresh, whole foods are also extremely expensive.
MANNE: Yeah.
LUSE: I don't want to lose sight of the fact that Miss Slim Kim is a Black woman. Honestly, when Slim Kim was getting a lot of critique, I saw Black women that otherwise had shared progressive views and progressive politics defending her or saying that they can understand where she was coming from to a certain degree, which was really fascinating to me. I've been thinking for days about what that's about, and the best that I can come up with is that it would make sense that if you cannot access certain privileges in other ways, like through your race or ethnicity, then perhaps accessing the privileges of thinness might become even more appealing to you. I mean, one of the comments in Slim Kim's video - like, on the actual video - said something to the tune of, you know, being thin is as valuable or more valuable than having a master's degree. And people were liking that comment. People agreed with that comment, right?
MANNE: Yeah, I mean, that's the kernel of truth in her video, and I do think compassion is warranted. It is in many ways easier to access goods that are in particularly short supply for marginalized folks if you have that cultural capital of thinness. And there was a particular phrase of hers - she said that her favorite thing to fear is not being skinny. So this isn't just reveling in her current thinness. It's saying she is afraid of what would happen to her or how she'd be viewed or treated if she was larger. There's both a truth to the idea that there are these huge privileges in thinness, and there's a moral case to be made for refusing some of those privileges, inasmuch as you can, rather than saying more of that, I want more of those privileges. Instead, I think the thing to do is stand in solidarity with people who are not thin and say you don't get to treat us differently because we happen to have different amounts of flesh on our bones.
LUSE: Taking all of this into account, I've seen people connecting the dots between this body policing and fascism. I kind of see where people are coming from.
MANNE: Yeah.
LUSE: There's this idea that the body is meant to be controlled and perfected, which goes hand in hand with eugenics, which is a pillar of fascism. Like, there's a very potent cultural belief that there are ways for you to control your body's appearance, like with GLP-1s like Ozempic, which people take for a variety of reasons, including weight loss. And if you're not, then you deserve whatever happens to you, and all that's on you. What do you all make of this connection?
MANNE: I mean, I see it very powerfully in the mandate for conformity. I mean, at the heart of fascism is this idea that fundamentally people should look and be one particular way that is culturally mandated and that whatever it takes to get a population to look like that, however brutal, however violent, however marginalizing, however genocidal, those means must be taken to get a population that conforms to that ideal. So, yeah, I think this is a worrisome moment, and it's not wrong to draw connections between the ways body ideals are changing and the fact that our politics are moving rightward in a pretty rapid direction and at a pretty rapid pace.
LUSE: You know, there's going to be people listening to this conversation that are going to be thinking, what does this have to do with me? This doesn't apply to me. This is just pure vanity. This isn't a topic worthy of importance or discussion. I want to ask each of you, why is it important for anyone and everyone, regardless of what body you have, to pay attention to the direction it seems like we're trending in? What is all of this signaling about what's to come?
MANNE: Think about the amount of energy and time and money and emotional labor and just all of it that we sink into the pretty sad, futile project of making our bodies, in the long term, only slightly smaller typically. Or imagine what we could do with all of that time and energy and maybe collectivity and solidarity if we banded together in ways that were not informed by beauty ideals but moral and political ideals. I think that a lot would be possible that currently feels like it isn't.
SPECTER: Absolutely. And I also just think that, you know, when it comes to bodily autonomy, your body is yours. And do I wish for you that you would have bigger dreams for it than just being small? Absolutely. But I don't get to tell anyone else how to live inside their body. I mean, you could consider yourself to be able-bodied and thin one day and have something happen that changes both of those ways of being the next. And I think even if you don't see the painful and difficult discourse around fatphobia and how bodies should look as applying to you now, it's worth getting invested in because, unfortunately, we're not guaranteed anything, let alone the continued shape of our bodies in the ways that most please us.
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LUSE: Emma, Kate, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much for joining us today.
MANNE: Thanks so much for having me.
SPECTER: Thank you, Brittany. Thank you, Kate.
LUSE: And as a thank-you, I'd like to teach you something by playing a game with you all. Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?
SPECTER: For sure.
MANNE: Absolutely.
LUSE: We'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Stick around.
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LUSE: All right, all right, we're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Here's how it works. I'm going to share a story that's been making headlines this week, and as I give you some background on the story, I'll also ask you trivia related to it. But don't worry, it's all multiple choice. The right answer is in there somewhere. The first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. Person with the most points wins, and their prize is bragging rights. Are you all ready?
MANNE: Yes.
SPECTER: Let's do it.
LUSE: All right. I love this energy. OK, to start, late Sunday evening, President Joe Biden announced he signed a full and unconditional pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, but he isn't the first president to pardon a relative. Which one of these former U.S. presidents also used the power of the Oval Office to pardon a family member? Was it, A, Andrew Jackson, B, Bill Clinton or C, Calvin Coolidge?
SPECTER: I was going to say Gerald Ford, so I don't think I'm winning this one.
MANNE: I'm going to guess C.
LUSE: All right, Kate says Calvin Coolidge. Emma, what say you?
SPECTER: I'm going to go Andrew Jackson.
LUSE: Well, unfortunately, neither one of y'all was right. The answer is B, Bill Clinton.
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SPECTER: Ugh.
LUSE: By his last day in office in January 2001, Clinton granted 140 pardons. One of those was for his half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr., who was convicted on cocaine distribution charges in 1985. The time had already been served, but the pardon cleared his criminal record.
OK, question number two - the president's pardon for his son caught major headlines, but he also issued two other pardons on November 25, carrying on the time-honored tradition of presidentially pardoning turkeys from being eaten on Thanksgiving. Which one of these real turkeys was not pardoned by the president this year?
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LUSE: Was it A, Abe, B, Blossom or C, Peach?
SPECTER: Peach?
MANNE: Abe.
LUSE: Emma says Peach, Kate says Abe, and, Kate, you are right. The answer is A, Abe.
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MANNE: Hooray. Completely random.
LUSE: Yes. Good guess, good guess. Abe was actually the name of a turkey pardoned in 2015 by President Obama, who nicknamed Abe TOTUS, or turkey of the United States. There you go.
MANNE: Oh.
LUSE: All right, to recap the score, Emma, you are at zero points. Kate, you are at one point.
SPECTER: Aw.
LUSE: So without further ado, the final question, we're going to - you know what? Because I'm in a mood today, I want to keep the competition moving, we're going to make this one three points. It's going to be three points so that the winner can take all. All right, question number three - while Biden's pardon is certainly notable, it pales in comparison to the thousands of pardons that other presidents have issued. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served 13 years in office, is said to have issued the most pardons. How many?
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LUSE: Did he issue A, 1,250 pardons, B, 6,405 pardons or C, 3,687 pardons?
SPECTER: C.
LUSE: Emma says C.
MANNE: I'm going to say B, split the difference.
LUSE: Kate says B. Well, Emma, you came up from behind. The answer is C.
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SPECTER: Whoa.
LUSE: Thirty-six, eighty-seven - 3,687 pardons. A lot of FDR's pardons were individuals involved in labor strikes, protests and prohibition offenders. So...
MANNE: OK, let's go, FDR.
LUSE: I know. I was, like, OK, pro-labor, I'm interested.
MANNE: Yeah.
LUSE: I'm interested. All right. Well, that's it for, But Did You Know for this week. Congratulations to Emma on your win.
MANNE: Congratulations, Emma.
SPECTER: Thank you. I certainly wasn't randomly guessing. I regularly study presidential pardons in my spare time.
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LUSE: That's what we love to hear. Oh, my gosh. Well, Kate, Emma, thank you both so much for joining me today. This was great.
MANNE: Thank you so much.
SPECTER: What a delight. Thanks again.
LUSE: Well, that was Emma Specter. She's an author and writer for Vogue magazine, and Kate Manne. She's an author and philosophy professor at Cornell University. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I get back, I'm taking a field trip to AnimeCon to find out why there are so many Black Anime fans.
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LUSE: This has to be truthfully one of the bigger conventions that comes to the Javits. And I've been here for DragCon, been here for BravoCon. If I thought BravoCon was big, this is, like, blowing BravoCon out the water.
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LUSE: In winter 2023, my producer Alexis took me to Anime NYC, and it was an experience. It's a convention held in the heart of Manhattan, and everywhere I looked there were people dressed up as their favorite Anime characters and celebrating Japanese culture. And I was overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up - over 63,000 attendees.
Obviously, Anime has been having a moment. Western demand for this genre has been growing for decades. And it includes some of the biggest franchises in the world, like "Dragon Ball Z," "Sailor Moon," and, of course, "Pokemon."
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IKUE OTANI: (As Pikachu) Pikachu.
LUSE: I, myself, have recently joined the ranks of Anime fandom - shout out to "Kiki's Delivery Service." And I knew being a Black fan wasn't necessarily uncommon, but it wasn't until we went to Anime NYC that I was, like, whoa.
First of all, a million Black people in here.
ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: There's a lot of Black people here.
LUSE: It's just like being any place else in New York.
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LUSE: I've never seen this many, like, Black people and Black Anime fans in the same room. It's usually just me.
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WILLIAMS: You know, Brittany, I have been an Anime fan for a very long time. I have seen the tides change, but this is, like, the best time to be a Black Anime fan because Anime is just cool now.
LUSE: I'm a newbie myself. And part of what even got me into this was just all these different Anime memes made by Black people.
WILLIAMS: You know Black people love them a meme show.
LUSE: I was, like, I don't understand this, and I want to be let into the club. And the Black Anime fandom is out here.
WILLIAMS: I mean, we've been out here, been here. But now it's, like, on a whole another level. I mean, earlier this year, Olympian Noah Lyles, who is now the fastest man in the world...
LUSE: Right.
WILLIAMS: ...Ran his Olympic trial race with "Yu-Gi-Oh!" trading cards in his pocket.
LUSE: (Laughter). Like, the children's cartoon.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, he said it's time to duel. Let's get down.
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NOAH LYLES: I got the left and right arms. And I got the legs coming tomorrow.
LEWIS JOHNSON: You're just speaking German to me, man. So I'm glad - I hope everybody don't understand...
LYLES: Just know all the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" fans know...
JOHNSON: All right.
LYLES: ...Something big is coming.
LUSE: (Laughter). I did not know he did that in an interview.
WILLIAMS: Listen, Brittany, he brought out the cards. He won the race. Who knows? Maybe "Yu-Gi-Oh!" did it. Who can say? But my personal favorite - and Brittany, you already know this, but for the listeners - I am a stallionaire. I'm a hot girl. I am a huge Megan Thee Stallion fan.
LUSE: (Laughter).
WILLIAMS: And earlier this year, Megan Thee Stallion released "Otaku Hot Girl," which samples a very well-known clip from the popular Anime series, "Jujustsu Kaisen."
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ADAM MCARTHUR: (Singing) I like a tall woman with a nice big - just saying, like Grammy-winner, Megan Thee Stallion.
LUSE: That is from an anime show? That must have been such a cool, like, wink, wink moment.
WILLIAMS: No, it really was. And it's like we're at this point where Anime has reached the top of the tippiest top of Black culture, which is so wild to see because anime used to be an extremely niche interest.
LUSE: Right.
WILLIAMS: And to be a Black person that is deeply invested in a very not Black subculture, it can be isolating at times.
LUSE: We're Black fans out here. There's little mini struggles. Even, like, people that know that I'm nerdy, they'll try to, like, be like, oh, she's probably not that kind of nerd. I'm like, I don't know what kind of nerd supposed to be other than me, so yeah.
So how did anime go from being something kind of dorky to being embraced by both the fastest man in the world and one of the biggest rappers out right now? And also, what is it about anime that speaks to Black people specifically?
WILLIAMS: So, to get into what's behind all of this, I talked to some Black fans at Anime NYC.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: It really started with kung fu movies and then, like, the little caricatures, and then going to the comic book store and just getting lost.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: That's why I watch it, though, is to escape reality. I don't want it to be like something I can actually, like, relate to. I want it to be something outrageous, outlandish, because they can do things that we can't do here as human beings.
LUSE: It was amazing how far back and how deep so many people's anime fandom went.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, so some of the things we heard were pretty familiar, right? There's, like, this long documented relationship between Black folks and kung fu movies, which likely got Black people interested in east Asian media in general, especially in the '60s and '70s. But then, of course, you have people who just love anime for the fun of it. I mean, that's what it's there for - right? - the fantasy, the escapism, all that good stuff. But some of this change is because of generational shifts, right? Black millennials and Gen Zers grew up with anime shows like "One Piece" and "Naruto." Shout out to Toonami on Cartoon Network, they did a big one. And now as adults they're defining what's culturally cool. But I think that one of the bigger themes to all of this is that Black people are seeing parts of themselves reflected in anime.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Just seeing people, like, fight against adversity, be different. I was in a lot of white spaces, where I was different. I didn't have the tools that everyone else did, and I still wanted to be the best there. And I think that's what really made me connect to those characters.
WILLIAMS: Brittany, I feel like you had a similar experience when you watched "Kiki's Delivery Service" for the first time.
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. I never expected a movie about a child witch who loses her magic because she just bawls too hard. I did not think that a children's movie was going to give me some of the first steps I needed to be able to cure my burnout. I didn't see that one coming. Society was kind of depending on witches to make things happen, I mean, not to get too deep with it, maybe the way the society expects Black women - OK? - to make things happen.
WILLIAMS: Listen, we're going to go there.
LUSE: We're going there.
WILLIAMS: Now, I don't think Miyazaki had that in mind when he made "Kiki's Delivery Service," but what you are speaking to is an experience that a lot of Black anime fans have described. Of course, we heard that a lot at Anime NYC. But after we left, I still had some questions about the way Black anime fans find ways to identify with characters that are just so different from us.
ALFRED MARTIN: So, particularly for Black people in the United States, we have always been understood as outsiders, and so we're scavenger-hunters in many ways. We pick up the crumbs because crumbs are broadly construed all that we get anyway, and then through those crumbs we make ourselves a whole meal.
LUSE: Mm, that's a word.
WILLIAMS: And so I reached out to Professor Alfred Martin. He's an associate professor of media studies at the University of Miami. He's also the author of an upcoming book, "Fandom For Us, By Us: The Pleasures And Practices Of Black Audiences." And one of the things Alfred's work really touches on is the nuanced way Black people kind of interpret and interact with media representation. And while he doesn't deal with anime in particular, his theory around Black audiences and comfort really stood out to me.
MARTIN: With comfort, it is about the things that we can retreat into and not have to necessarily worry about the rest of the world, because we have, as we know, racial battle fatigue, and there's a way that we like to be able to engage with media that we can actually enjoy and not think about the politics of representation. So that is typically where my work around cross-racial fandom comes in.
LUSE: Cross-racial fandom meaning Black people watching something that doesn't represent them at all, but still finding enjoyment and connection in it.
WILLIAMS: Right, and this is something we see across a lot of things Black audiences enjoy. It's not just anime, but you can even think of the way Black people sort of corralled around "Game Of Thrones." And according to Alfred's work, Black audiences are sort of primed to making sense of and asserting themselves in a world that doesn't always include them.
MARTIN: So at its core, all media has to be what we call polysemic. That is, to have multiple ways that you can understand it. And because of that, and because of Blackness' what I call bilingualness, and the ways that we both have to understand ourselves and our culture, but we also have to understand whiteness and white culture. And so part of what we are able to do is approach texts and then we actually find ways to make them make sense within our frameworks of Blackness.
WILLIAMS: So, to sort of drive this point home, Alfred told me about his research in talking to Black fans of "Golden Girls."
LUSE: Oh, I am included in that number (laughter).
MARTIN: There's a way that we sort of take our cultural competencies and we map them onto something like the "Golden Girls" so that it can feel resonant for us, even if it wasn't for us. Black folks tend to read these shows and think about, for example, intergenerational living situations. So a number of Black folks grew up with their grandparents as well as their parents in the home. There are also ways with something like "The Golden Girls" that Black people understand the ways that they understood they were not friends. They were not roommates. They said they were sisters. And Black folks, we are always talking about, oh, that's my sister. That's my aunt. That's my cousin.
LUSE: Now that he puts it that way, I do see a lot of that reflected in my own enjoyment of "Golden Girls." I feel like I connect with them, but they also feel familiar to me. I don't know if I ever would've thought about that that way, but I absolutely see what he's talking about.
WILLIAMS: And this, I think, can be applied to a lot of marginalized identities. It's kind of like what Alfred said. If we're used to scavenging through media for something that resonates, it's not surprising that we find ourselves really attached to stories that don't exactly make your racial perception the forefront. I sort of see that myself in one of the biggest anime shows I grew up with, "Naruto."
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MAILE FLANAGAN: (As Naruto Uzumaki) I'm Naruto Uzumaki. And my future dream is to be the greatest Hokage. Then the whole village will stop disrespecting me and start treating me like I'm somebody.
DAVID STEPHENS: "Naruto" is one of the more popular ones because of some of the themes that are present in "Naruto." The main character is someone who's been shunned from his society. His parents have died. So he's on his own. He really has had to get everything out of the mud by himself. And I think that is a story, a narrative that really resonates with young Black people in general because of these different themes of having to deal with discrimination, having to deal with poverty, having to deal with social isolation.
WILLIAMS: That is doctor David Stephens. He is a professor of media studies at the University of Memphis. And I found it so interesting that he said this because it was literally the exact same thing someone said to me at the convention last year.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: From American media, it just always seemed very, like, easy for the character to get what they needed or they were liked by everyone. And anime, a lot of their characters started from the bottom. You know, like, they were - or even if not from the bottom, they were ostracized. Or everybody may not have liked them, but they kept at it and kept working. And I feel like as a culture, that's us. Like, we work at our craft. We're good at what we do and still always not accepted. So, for me, like, I saw these characters, and I was like, yo, they're funny. They're smart, and people don't like them still, but they're fire. Like...
LUSE: (Laughter) Oh, that is a very relatable experience. It's so interesting, though, that that was something that both an academic and researcher noticed that also just your everyday fan would pick up on as well. That's so cool.
WILLIAMS: Honestly, finding people like Alfred and David really opened my eyes to the fact that we don't have a lot of research or at least don't put a lot of stake into the importance of Black fandom, especially as it pertains to things like anime and how Black people's perception of it, how Black people receive it sort of shape the ways in which they think about their identity in relation to each other but also the wider world. But when you go outside the norm, you know, there's always going to be a little friction.
STEPHENS: As we're seeing the expansion of Black anime fans in their own personal identity, we're also seeing pushback from outside of Black communities, who conceive of anime communities in more traditional ways.
WILLIAMS: And we heard that from Black fans at Anime NYC as well.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: We are treated bad. Like, we are legit treated bad. You would hear comments like the N-word, monkeys - even were saying, like, oh, this character is not Black.
LUSE: I mean, unfortunately, it is sadly unsurprising to hear about racism within a fandom community 'cause I feel like that happens often enough with "Star Wars" and "The Hunger Games" and whatnot. But I also know that anime isn't exactly perfect as a genre when it comes to representation, either. I mean, I'm not deep in the fandom, but I've definitely heard about some of the hiccups there.
WILLIAMS: Oh, 100%. This is not an anime-is-the-cure-to-Western-media's-racism take at all. But if we are going to talk about racism and anime, I think I have to bring up an example. We have mentioned "Dragon Ball Z" already, but...
LUSE: Oh, I think I know where this is going.
WILLIAMS: Do you know Mr. Popo?
LUSE: Uh-huh.
WILLIAMS: Brittany, would you mind describing Mr. Popo to our listeners?
LUSE: Well, first of all, jump scare (laughter). That's the first thing - jump scare. He looks honestly like a golliwog, like, one of those racist little dolls. I'm serious. I mean, this is a rather rotund character with an all-black, pitch-black body, a big, fat red loop for lips. I mean, this looks like a classic Sambo character but with a turban on top and two, like, bangles over each arm like a genie.
WILLIAMS: Listen. Mr. Popo has been the center of a lot of controversy, and rightfully so. But David had an interesting take on Mr. Popo I had never heard before.
STEPHENS: We have to be careful as Western audiences to understand that anime is a primarily Japanese form of expression. And as such, we have to think about the sort of geographical and the cultural context. This really comes into play when we think about the interpretation of Black characters. And I really should sort of put that in quotes because it is often nebulous - the racial and ethnic character of some of the people that we see on screen.
LUSE: Wait. So Mr. Popo isn't meant to be Black.
WILLIAMS: Listen, I don't know what Mr. Popo is, except very strange. But based on "Dragon Ball Z" lore, he is a genie. But David had an interesting idea about how Mr. Popo's depiction may be more complicated than we thought.
STEPHENS: He's kind of the classic racial archetype that people critique in Japanese animes, who really takes on the look of a traditional minstrel character that we see in American history that was used to mock and derive Black people. That character who wears a turban also possesses characteristics of South Asian or Indian cultures. I think that's also an interpretation that we have to take into consideration. As anime grows in its globalization, our understanding of race is going to continue to be challenged. And we can't rely on these old, traditional understandings of binary, black-and-white relationships.
WILLIAMS: Let me be very clear here and say that this debate doesn't negate the fact that Mr. Popo still is offensive to people. Like, this is not a get out of jail card (laughter).
LUSE: No, absolutely not. It actually sounds like Mr. Popo is quite offensive.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
LUSE: Broadly. Hard body, yeah.
WILLIAMS: But I do think David's point does I guess - not add a wrinkle to Black fandom, but it does make it important to realize sort of your position as a fan when you engage with these things.
LUSE: It sounds like it's calling attention to the fact that we as Americans are bringing our American Black-white framing to everything, even to, like, media and subcultures that come from other countries and other parts of the world altogether.
WILLIAMS: One hundred percent. And I do think that what David is uplifting here is that even though we have a very unique position as Black people, Black Americans or just Black people that live in America, our racial framing as fans is still very important. I think that's why it's so important that Black fans are not only showing their interest in the medium but taking ownership of the space in a lot of ways and finding ways to merge the cultures in ways that are comfortable and impactful for them. When we were at the convention last year, we actually went to a panel called Kinks and Curls: Ethnic Hair in Cosplay.
LUSE: Right.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Anime NYC Kinks and Curls. Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED COSPLAYER #1: I say in my head - I'm like, oh, I want to cosplay this character but make them Black. I want to be me as that character, not me pretending.
UNIDENTIFIED COSPLAYER #2: I want to look Afrocentric still. I do want to look like the character, but I want them to look...
WILLIAMS: So you can see there, like, it was a larger conversation about Black cosplayers, how to do your hair as a cosplayer. Do you braid it under a wig? Do you make your own stuff? But it's also about how they want to, like the host said, embody these characters and make them a part of their own identity. And we can't go through this episode without mentioning that I also...
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: ...Cosplayed (laughter).
LUSE: Yes, you did. I mean, look, I want the listeners to understand. Alexis was the cosplay queen of Anime NYC 2023. Let's just make that clear.
WILLIAMS: I dressed up as Drolta from Netflix's "Castlevania: Bloodline." For those who don't know, Drolta is a Black vampire with bright pink hair. So I made a really big, cotton candy pink afro wig, and it caused a lot of ruckus.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED CON-GOER #1: Oh, my God, she looks incredible. Insane, insane. I just said, oh, my God out loud. You are her, just want you to know that.
UNIDENTIFIED CON-GOER #2: Her.
UNIDENTIFIED CON-GOER #1: Just want you to know that.
UNIDENTIFIED CON-GOER #2: Her.
UNIDENTIFIED CON-GOER #1: Just want you to know that.
WILLIAMS: It's the hers in the background that really do it for me.
(LAUGHTER)
LUSE: Alexis, how did it feel to be not just surrounded by Black anime fans, but to be embraced by them in the middle of celebrating this artform that you've loved for so long?
WILLIAMS: You know, Brittany, it honestly felt extremely heartwarming. I felt like, as someone who spent a lot of time as a kid watching anime, reading manga, it can often feel like there's not an easy entry point to bonding with people about it. So to go to a space where, like, literally every person we looked at was another Black person and have them look immediately at my cosplay and be like, oh, I know exactly who you are, and I love the way you did it - it was just, like, a really beautiful, full circle experience.
LUSE: That's so beautiful. So you kind of got to have, like, the full circle moment. Well, Alexis, I really appreciate you sharing your love of anime with me. Like I said, I think you've given me the bug at this point (laughter).
WILLIAMS: Thanks for allowing me to do it, Brittany.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUSE: That was IT'S BEEN A MINUTE producer Alexis Williams. Thanks again to Dr. David Stephens and Dr. Alfred Martin, and to everyone who spoke with us at Anime NYC. This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...
BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.
WILLIAMS: Alexis Williams.
LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.
COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.
LUSE: Our executive producer is...
JASMINE ROMERO, BYLINE: Jasmine Romero.
LUSE: Our VP of programming is...
YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.
LUSE: All right, that's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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