My freshman year of college, ‘The Hunger Games’ movie adaptation came out, and I was really excited about it. This was maybe 2011. I loved it, but there was a lot of hateful backlash against the black characters in the film.
I know how nasty backlash can be on the Internet.
Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. And the cool thing about the Internet is that it’s allowing women more access to their own history. Part of the problem before the Internet was that we didn’t know which books to read. Someone had to tell you.
I have seen many a tear-strewn individual during my time working on daytime TV’s morning sofas: individuals encouraged to share their views, ill prepared for the backlash that social media will deliver direct to you, unregulated and unrelenting.
There’s a toxicity within gaming culture, and also in tech culture, that drives this misogynist hatred, this reactionary backlash against women who have anything to say, especially those who have critiques or who are feminists.
When reality television really hit, I just had a backlash towards reality. It seemed like a cheap way to make a product. And then when music reality and ‘Idol hit,’ I just didn’t watch it, it seemed novelty. And of course the story of ‘Idol,’ this is one of the greatest stories in television history.
I faced a lot of backlash when I spoke about being sexually harassed by Dibakar Banerjee. Not directly, but indirectly, I was boycotted by the entire fraternity that supported the director, because it is a male-dominated set-up.
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