Name: elif sinem's review of The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
Item: The Dark Fantastic
Rating: 5
Author: elif sinem

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

Reveals the diversity crisis in children's and young adult media as not only a lack of representation, but a lack of imagination Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children’s publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not all lives matter. The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fanfiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century: Bonnie Bennett from the CW’s The Vampire Diaries, Rue from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC’s Merlin, and Angelina Johnson from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Analyzing their narratives and audience reactions to them reveals how these characters mirror the violence against black and brown people in our own world. In response, Thomas uncovers and builds upon a tradition of fantasy and radical imagination in Black feminism and Afrofuturism to reveal new possibilities. Through fanfiction and other modes of counter-storytelling, young people of color have reinvisioned fantastic worlds that reflect their own experiences, their own lives. As Thomas powerfully asserts, “we dark girls deserve more, because we are more.”

Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games

The Dark Fantastic

Monica Isabella

elif sinem

There's a big chance this is the most important book I've read all year, and one that will inform me as a writer / reader for years to come.

Sahi K

This book has been on my radar for almost an year but I just kept putting it on the back burner for whatever reasons. But I recently came across it being talked about on Twitter and as we are always talking about the importance of good representation in media, I decided to pick it up and it’s really such an informative work. 

I have to say that I didn’t always completely understand the terminology being used in the book because it’s definitely more of an academic/research work and not just for casual reading. The author makes some very important points about how important representation is especially in media for young adults and teenagers, but also that the bit of rep that Black characters get is not always good and more often than not falls into very old and standard stereotypes, which do nothing for positive inclusion. The author dives in depth into four popular media franchises which were made from book to screen, and how the changes that were made to the Black characters during this transition from one medium to another fall into these tropes. 

From the depiction of Rue in Hunger Games where she becomes a plot device for the white heroine’s character growth, Gwen in the British show Merlin who ends up being sad and alone towards the end, Bonnie on The Vampire Diaries who never has a fulfilling romantic relationship despite being the self-sacrificing moral center of the show, and Angelina in Harry Potter who gets made fun of despite being a capable witch and then got whitewashed in the movies (even though she is the only named Black girl in the series). The author also dissects the reactions in the fandom towards these characters and how many readers seem incredulous to the idea that Black girls can be a queen in a historical, or be desirable and happy, or just exist with a fulfilling narrative of their own and not to further the arc of a white character. As someone who has read and seen all four of these books/movies/shows, it really made me look at all of them in a different light, and realize that we all have been conditioned to believe that centering of white characters is normal and anything else is other and exceptional. 

To conclude, I’m not really able to express exactly how I felt about this book but it truly was very eye opening and I think it’s an important read for anyone who wants to read and review books or any other media more critically, especially when it comes to representation. But I will say that you’ll feel more engaged with this book if you have read/seen all four of the series that are discussed, otherwise you might feel a little lost. And if you are someone who loves more academic or research oriented works which critique our modern young adult media, then this book is perfect for you.

Anyaconda

Can you imagine growing up without stories and characters that you can identify with? What if all characters looked different from the way you do and villains and slaves were the ones who had the same appearance as you do? How would that make you feel?
This book was a necessary eye opener and biography that analyzed Pop culture and media and how it affects children and teenagers of color.
An extremely interesting read! Pick this one up if you like Roxane Gay or N.K. Jemisin. I'm looking forward to more black Sci-Fi, fantasy and books in general.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.

Jo H

3.5 stars. A little dry at times for my taste, and a tad lacking in scope just discussing YA fictional characters (that is a personal thing), but this book has me REALLY wanting to watch Merlin now. I still have no interest in Harry Potter, and as I have seen all the Hunger Games movies I need to get on that. 

I absolutely couldn't agree more about the author's analysis of Bonnie Bennet of The Vampire Diaries which I'm still really annoyed about all this time later. That one character could have taken up half of the book alone as there were lots of things that were only touched upon and some that were not mentioned at all. Also, I do think that it would have been really useful to see commentary on the characters of The Originals, the spin-off of TVD, as, as much as I loved it even more than TVD, it had TONS of issues regarding its POC characters. TBH though, both TVD and TO had major issues regarding a number of their white characters too... with one factor in common - their female showrunner/co-creator. That individual has a whole lot to answer for, and seems to be following some of the same mistakes in the 3rd spin off show Legacies which has 4 black male main/regaular characters but no females...

I would like to see more from the author broaden the scope of this subject by also looking at various other leading black female characters in adult genre shows that have been totally shat on in TV; the ones I know about off the top of my head - Tara from True Blood, Abbey Mills from Sleepy Hollow, Michonne (no surname!) from The Walking Dead, but also as I've never watched them Analise of How To Get Away With Murder and Olivia of Scandal. I wonder if these last two shows because they are helmed by a black woman, are different when looked at in-depth?

More thoughts to follow.

Monica Isabella &
The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

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Monica Isabella &The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas

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Monica Isabella &
The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas