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Fictional Women Around the World: Anissa Pierce · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: stuff I've never told your production of I Heart Radio,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and welcome to our sub sub segment Fictional Women around
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the World. Very popular sub sub segment. I'm going to say,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: even though I have to back up, I agree. Thank you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Since this falls in Pride Month, I wanted to highlight
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a black queer woman in the fictional world, so we're
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: going with Black Lightnings a Nissa Pierce a k Black Thunder,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and briefly Blackbird played by Nefessa Williams, widely regarded as
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the first black lesbian superhero on network television and disclaimer,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not super familiar with Black Lightning, though they did.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: They used to film on My Street pretty regularly and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that was always really cool. But it seems like something
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'd be super into. I just don't they have TV anymore,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: so I gotta find stuff on the online. It's on Netflix. Yes,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's about to leave Netflix though, or either
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the fourth season is about to come. I saw some
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Netflix news about it. Those are two opposite things, an'ty.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I know. I can't remember which it was, but it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: was one of them. And we are going to mainly
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: focus on the show here, but we'll have some comics
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: stuff in there. I was toying with doing Black Widow,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: but we already talked about her in our Female Assassins
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: episode because the movie is about to come out as
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: we record this or Riley from the last vez, but
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I figured I should mix it up a bit because
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: we've only had I think four of these and two
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: have been the last. So you love what you love
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in this fine I do, thank you. So. Blacklining is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a c W show based on the d C comics
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of the same name that is part of the Arrow Verse.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And of all those shows, I've only seen Arrow and
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the Flash, I will say that it first aired in
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: eighteen and ended in one and takes place in Freeland, Georgia.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: The through its tenure, it received critical acclaim and yeah,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: they haven't gotten a lot of accolades. I think it
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: follows Jefferson, Anissa and Jenna prepares Dr Lynne Stewart and
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Gambi as they navigate social justice issues and superpowers. There
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: are themes of family organizing, male privileged, white feminism, racism,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: police brutality, and black women as courageous leaders. Anissa is
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the oldest daughter of Jefferson Pearce and Lynn Stewart, and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: sister to Jennifer. She is a medical student, teacher, activist, lesbian,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and nerd on top of being I Met a human
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and a superhero. She's smart, justice oriented, determined to help others, strong, competent,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: on wavering and her beliefs As she develops her powers
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of invulnerability, strength, stomp, shock waves, which are awesome. I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: saw some of those, thunderclap, accelerated healing, and an ability
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to increase her density. She's at first and aware that
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: herd add is a superhero um, and she discovers her
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: grandfather had been investigating side effects of a vaccine called
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Green a Light that resulted in some people getting powers.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Very reminiscent of Tuskegee, she whips up a temporary superhero
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: get up, something that later gets updated to her official
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: thunder suit. She works on her powers as her sister
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: shies away from her own powers, at least at first
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: so in the comic, her father wanted to keep her
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: from the superhero life, and he made her promise to
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: graduate college before deciding whether or not that was a
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: life she wanted to pursue. The night of her graduation,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: she puts on the suit in the persona of Thunder.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: She joined a superhero team where she met Grace, someone
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: she seemed to clash with. Oh However, as these things
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: go with time, they learned to respect and even like
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: each other, and yes, obviously eventually they started a relationship
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: with each other. Her father tried to get her to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: quit the team, but she refused, and after a mishap
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: with Batman and Bad Girl that led the team into
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a booby trap and it has suffered brain damage and
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: fell into a coma. So interesting when all these comic characters. Yeah,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, so that's one of the things about the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Arrow Verse. I don't watch, like I said, any of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: them really, except for the Flashes, my go to, Like,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I still loved the Flash, I couldn't get into the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Arrow after a certain amount of time, was like, all right,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of done with this one. But they had
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the whole multiverse in the show where they all crossed over.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So I'm really confused about this now because I don't
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: watch Black Lightning. But now I'm like, but wait, that
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: world was killed off. I don't understand. So now I'm like, yeah,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that happened to me with a Star Wars something you
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: wouldn't believe that, I'm sure, but I was like, Okay,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I think I have to go and watch this other
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: show for this to make sense. Right. I'm like, I'm
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: gonna have to go check this one out because this
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is not making sense to me right now. Right. Um So,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: while and this is father believes they should fight within
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the system, and this that disagreases him, something that curs
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: throughout the series. When he doesn't agree with her, sometimes
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: she ditches the suit and takes manners into her own hands. Eventually,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: her father, Black Lightning Slash Jefferson, comes around to her
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: side of things, and when she calls him out for
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: male privilege, he is mad about it, but ultimately takes
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: her advice, which saves the day. So he learned something
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: from her, which I think is really cool. She sticks
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to her beliefs and acts on them. Throughout the series.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: She gets arrested protesting a Confederate statue, fights and steals
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: from drug dealers and gangsters things like that. She faces
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: some harassment as a queer black woman, but as a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: superhero shuts it down very very quickly. There are some
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: interpretations that the superhero storyline parallels the lesbian storyline and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: identity that many have felt or feel has to be
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: kept secret. Her family was very supportive of her when
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: she came out, however, So she's in a steady relationship
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: with Grace, a woman of color and a shape shifter
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: dealing with some serious rama and PTSD. They're both caring
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and devoted to each other, and they end up getting married.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Viewers got to see and it's a change from a
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: very cautious lover to someone who was entirely open and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in love. Quote and I think this is one of
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: her lines. I don't care that you're a leopard or
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: an old man or a shape sister. I love you.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I know that reading was not great, but all in
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a very dramatic fight a Nissa had to knock out
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a mind controlled Grace and put her in a coma.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: My gosh. Lots of people in Comma's yeah yeah, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: this when I was researching this online, young people and
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: black people and Greeer people and any intersection therein felt
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: like this was such a powerful story for them that
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: they hadn't seen and that they had this relationship between Grace,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: who was also a woman of color and a Nissa
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: who's a lesbian and seeing that growth and seeing them
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: stay together that it was very beautiful and moving. And yes,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: this character is one of a very annoyingly small handful
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: of black career characters on broadcast. He a number that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: is actually going down according to a twenty seventeen GLAD survey.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So we need more characters like this. Yeah, we've we've
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: talked about the power of representation, how important it is.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And when I was thinking about this and I was
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: trying to come up with the black queer characters, I know,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: almost all of them came from like three shows, Like
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I know there are more, but those were just the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: ones that came to my mind. And then when you're
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: talking about like superheroes in this world and the fact
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that she's like the first black lesbian superhero and it's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you know, as we're talking about this earlier when the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: show came out, but yeah, we need more than that. Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I think what's so funny is that they do seem
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to have this awful level of like tokenism in which
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: they just have a handful though you can't exceed this
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: because that's excessive, and that exceeding is like one per
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: cent of the entirety if if that, and they're like,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: now we did it, it's fine, everything's fine, and literally
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: patting themselves on the bag about how it does such
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a good job in representation. And don't get me wrong,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I think DC has done a better job than Marvel
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: in this manner, like they're bringing in more and more
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and actually featuring them as opposed to what's happened with
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of the Marvel stuff, which they barely I
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: guess they do have one, and they just introduced Monica Rambo.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know she's queer though, is she did they
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: say whether or not she was, They don't say. And
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I don't recall her being queer in the conflicts, but
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean she wasn't. It's right A long time
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and being those things change all the time. It does.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: But desac that they finally introduced one. But it's gotten
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to this year. Can we go? We go? I mean
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that aus they're tokenizing is seemingly Hopefully it's not and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: hopefully they will grow and it is bigger and that's
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: just correcting mistakes and we'll seem more and she won't
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: be the token for the universe. But yeah, it's sad
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it is, it is, but yeah, here's hoping for progress
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and more progress in this in this realm. If there's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: someone you want to cover in this sub sub segment,
• 9:09
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• 9:13
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• 9:15
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• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It's always to a sup producer, Christina, thank you and
• 9:22
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