If you’ve been following my IG stories the past month, you probably know I’ve been marathoning Master of None (I will stop posting about it, promise). What is most satisfying about it is the depth that diverse characters are allowed to have. It is an antidote to all the years of internalizing media messages that essentially amount to “you will never be anything but a token character, a sidekick. And sidekicks don’t have their own stories.” Reminded me of something Junot Diaz said:
"You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
I am grateful to all the mirror-makers. The ones that confirm that you exist and that it matters that you do. All bodies are good bodies, and we should treat all of them so.
