Harry Potter and the Fact That Hermione is Black
Hermione Granger means so much to so many girls, myself included. She’s smart and brave — the smartest witch of her age — and saved the world. She’s someone who prefers books to people (except a select few) and can be brass and bold at times when girls are usually told not to be. She’s a role model and a mirror. And because her race is never specified in the Harry Potter series, many girls around the world can picture someone who looks like them as her character. She was of course, cast as white in the Hollywood adaptations of the books — because Hollywood gonna Hollywood — but that doesn’t mean that she has to be white in all adaptations of the series. Buzzfeed already showed us the mounds of Hermione-as-black fanart that exists in the world. And now that dream that so many of us had is coming true.
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NOCs of the Roundtable: Hot Star Wars Takes Awaken
You might not have known, but a little movie opens this weekend. It’s called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Heard of it? Well, it’s already shattering box office records worldwide, and it’ll probably be the highest grossing movie of the year. And there’s only two more weeks left in the year.
Anyway, a bunch of the NOCs have already seen the movie and want to share their thoughts. We’ll be updating this Roundtable throughout the weekend as more of us head out to the multiplex. In the meantime, know that anything and everything after the jump are massive Star Wars spoilers. Be warned.
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Cole Horibe and Charles Pulliam Talk #AAIronFist
The #AAIronFist train continues! For the latest edition of Hard NOC Life, we welcome journalist Charles Pulliam-Moore and actor/dancer Cole Horibe stop by to talk about why having Iron Fist be an Asian American character makes the most sense. We should also point out that this episode was recorded the day before Scott Buck was announced as the showrunner of the forthcoming Netflix series.
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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: The Butterfly Effect
Continuing our recap catch up, the penultimate episode of Into the Badlands was clearly the most interesting of the season. And that’s too bad because after this weekend’s season finale, we don’t know if AMC will be bringing the show back for a second one. We hope so since all the pieces are finally in place for an epic showdown between good, evil, and everything in between.
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NOC Recaps Arrow: Sinking ‘Ships
Because this recap is a week late (sorry, got distracted writing on twitter about a different rich, blonde, white guy who learns the ways of the Orient and returns a superhero) and because I’m just filling in, my recap of the Arrow winter finale, titled “Dark Waters,” will follow a different format. Rather than just giving a play-by-play of what happened in the ep, I wanna spend extra time on two aspects of the show and its fandom that needs to be discussed. And of course we will talk about that ending.
January Brings Four Straight Days of Greg Berlanti’s DC Universe
It’s no secret we’re big fans of The CW’s shared universe of DC superheroes. Arrow and Flash are two of the only shows we still livetweet and recap on a regular basis (shout out Connie and Christelle!) and this season — though it’s on CBS and not (yet) connected — we’ve thrown Supergirl into the mix as well. Of course all of these shows are now on their annual holiday break and won’t return until January. But when they do, they’ll be joined by a new kid on the block, Legends of Tomorrow.
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Supergirl is a Total Drag
Welp. We’re down seven episodes on CBS’ new Supergirl series, and I can now definitively say that not only does it suck, but it’s also a drag.
Let me clarify: TV shows can suck and still be worth watching. They can feature horrible dialogue, break characterization for cheap plotlines, deploy so many reversals that situations and relationships become meaningless, flub the acting, swell the dime-store music, and commit any number of fundamental visual storytelling sins… while still being hella fun to watch.
Fear of an Asian Martial Artist: The Thing about Stereotypes & #AAIronFist
Lately, this site has been All Iron Fist Every Thing, so apologies if you don’t give two shits about that particular character. Also, you might want to click elsewhere because we’re going to drill a little deeper into the reasons why we’ve been on the #AAIronFist train — that would be Asian American Iron Fist and not Alcoholics Anonymous, btw — for the last 20 months. Two things came up in the last week or so that have led to this resurgence in interest in an Asian American Iron Fist. First, Marvel and Netflix finally announced a showrunner for the series. Secondly, Comic Book Resources published this essay by Albert Ching on why Danny Rand shouldn’t be Asian American.
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Dark Dude, Dark Tower
Another casting announcement, another collective nerdy white boy meltdown. This time, they are directing their ire towards the rumblings that Idris Elba is “the frontrunner” for Roland Deschain in the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s brilliant (well, except for books 5 and 6) The Dark Tower series. I won’t go into why I love the series or what it is about, but for those of you who are unfamiliar or want to know more, click here. Needless to say it is Stephen King, so the series is a masterwork of imagination, storytelling, and world building. I think folks were fancasting this series in the early ’80s, with Clint Eastwood being the near unanimous choice for Deschain. Back in the day, the choice was spot on. Hell, even King alluded to it. The only clear choice for Deschain is Viggo Mortensen, not Elba.
BBC’s Merlin: A Retrospective
Originally published at Geeks Out
This month marks the three year anniversary of the series finale of the BBC’s Merlin. By no means is it an all-time favorite show and more than a few formulaic eps I could’ve done without. But the show had its charms and when it brought it’s A-game, the show delivered moments that were nothing short of magic. See what I did there?
All the same, I find myself plagued with all the feels. So much so that it’s forced me to break out into song.
NOC Recaps The Flash: The Rogues Awaken
The CW pulled out the big guns for The Flash’s second mid-season finale: Mark Hamill’s return as the Trickster, Captain Cold, and… Wally West? Yes. Wally Freaking Kid Flash West is in this episode, and he’s beautiful. I mean, it’s beautiful. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Anyways, happy holidays and speed onward to read onward!
Race, Politics, and the Third Self: Why We Need Iron Fist and Ms. Marvel to be Asian American
It’s been quite a while since I’ve contributed anything, but with the news that Iron Fist has a showrunner and also with Donald Trump wasting our time and being overtly bigoted, I thought it was an opportunity to look at the importance of introducing more POC characters in our fiction, and the importance of identity, on a wide range of levels.
NOC Recaps Supergirl: My Favorite Martian
Full disclosure: I wasn’t really looking forward to last night’s Supergirl. After the big cliffhanger in last week’s excellent entry into the season — in which Kara cuts herself on a piece of glass, demonstrating her loss of powers — I was disappointed the show was already going the no powers route so soon. This trope gets explored in nearly every iteration of the Superman/Supergirl story. But boy was I wrong! “Human For a Day” might be my favorite episode so far!
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The Happy Hour Review: Totally Awesome Hulk
When I was a kid, I had to dig real deep for a comic book with an Asian face in it. There were no superheroes in my image from the big publishers, Marvel and DC. Instead I bought every copy I could find of this kung fu book Oriental Heroes. And when that wasn’t enough, I bought every copy of Usagi Yojimbo I could get my hands on. A samurai bunny was close enough.
Marvel’s The Totally Awesome Hulk isn’t just close enough, it’s perfect.
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NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Warriors vs. Clippers
Last night’s Into the Badlands — clunkily titled “Two Tigers Subdue Dragons” and not to be confused with this — was tasked with propelling us into the end of the season. In addition to a promised Baron v Baron showdown, the episode was the first to effectively use an episode-ending cliffhanger to guarantee viewers will tune in for the final two entries of its debut season. But did it deliver?
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Why Does Danny Rand Need to be White?
by MC Nedelsky in collaboration with MCU Exchange
The news just broke that Scott Buck has been tapped to spearhead Iron Fist for Netflix and Marvel. This has led people to speculate that the show will cast a white lead despite the fact that the momentum for an Asian American Iron Fist is growing. Keith Chow begun the discussion over a year ago with his powerful op-ed on why having an Asian American play Danny Rand is so important. It was a piece that had a large impact on me, and many others such as Lexi Alexander and Gail Simone have taken up the call. Nerds of Color and MCU Exchange have teamed up to produce a series of articles providing suggestions not only how to adapt Iron Fist’s complex mythology but also arguing that an Asian American Iron Fist makes more sense not only for reasons of diversity, but for thematic and narrative reasons as well, and a few weeks ago Charles Pulliam-Moore of Fusion wrote forcefully that Iron Fist “better be Asian,” joining the chorus of voices who feel this is important. It’s a proper movement now.
Why’d They Do Black Panther Like That?
Originally posted on Ebony.com
What was meant to be a celebratory moment for (Black) comic book fans turned out offensive. This week’s Entertainment Weekly turned the highly anticipated reveal of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s interpretation of the first Black superhero into a fiasco of epic proportions. T’Challa, king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda (also known as the hero Black Panther), got sonned by EW.
The Wiz Live! Wrap Up: Brand New Day
I had so much fun watching NBC’s airing The Wiz: Live! on network television. Having grown up with the original, I was curious to see how the new version would stand up. And now I’m going to slip into gush mode because you guys. YOU GUYS. IT WAS AWESOME. We sooooo needed this, especially in this time where most news about blacks are seeded with shootings, protests, micro-aggressions, and fear. The Wiz: Live! was a welcome — and very much needed — celebration of black culture in all its forms.
Update Our Hard NOC Life Podcast Feed on iTunes
If you’re already a subscriber to the audio version of Hard N.O.C. Life, first THANK YOU! We know not everyone has the time or bandwidth to watch us on YouTube, so we started a podcast you can find and subscribe to on iTunes. Recently, we switched up our podcast feed to Soundcloud, so if you’ve subscribed to the original podcast, you’ll need to update your feed by going here.
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Guess We Don’t Need to See Batman v Superman Now
Since when did Jimmy Kimmel Live become the go-to place for movie studios to drop their most anticipated trailers? It made sense before to have all-Marvel or all-Star Wars editions — Disney owns ABC, after all — but using Kimmel to reveal Warner/DC’s formal entry into the cinematic superhero wars was a surprise. Like, why not use The CW’s two-part Flarrow crossover1 to show off their big guns? Corporate synergy, remember? Still, like a proper nerd, I tuned in to Kimmel to see the latest tease for what will be the biggest movie of March 2016.
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NOC Recaps Arrow: Hubris, Not Hope
As we know, Team Flarrow is trying to protect the Hawks from Vandal Savage, who wants to murder them because of destiny or habit or something. So everyone’s all teamed up, Kendra’s unlocked her hawking powers, and Oliver’s spotted his baby mama!
I’ve been so cautious this season, guys. Good things were happening. Oliver was LEARNING LESSONS. TEAM FLARROW WAS AWESOME. Despite some plot/exposition bumps, the team up in this half of the crossover was fun. There were things I wished for: Less Carter. ANY Snowlicity aside from their one nerd moment. Less white ancient Egypt (I’ll get on some of that later). But the Barry/Oliver moments were great — they’re wonderful foils for each other. As was anything with Cisco. Can he be my friend? Also he should be in every show. But just like we were burned last season with the Ra’s al Ghul arc, this Kid arc (I’ll come up with a better name for it another time) is only going to lead to terrible things. Unhappy fans. Annoyed fans.
NOC Recaps The Flash: It’s Getting Hawk in Here
Other title options: Ready to Hawk and Roll, Hawked and Loaded, Hawk of Ages, We Will Hawk You, Too Hawk Hawk Damn, and Drop It like It’s Hawk1.
Before we begin… does Hawkgirl “claim” to be white? Uh oh, this is hawkward… but it wouldn’t be too surprising. (See Sandra Hawke, Sin, and Ra’s Al Ghul). I personally went through Kendra Saunders’ twitter history to read her tweets and reactions and responses to identifying as white. I urge others to do the same and form an opinion after seeing both sides.
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NOC Recaps Arrow: Brothers Gonna Work It Out
We’re not going to do this recap like past ones. Mainly because the last episode of Arrow, “Brotherhood,” aired two weeks ago. Also, because I’m not Connie, whose recap game is much stronger than mine, there probably won’t be any Hamilton references either. Instead, we’re just going to touch on the main points as we prep for the second half of the Flarrow crossover tonight.
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