And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours; verily in that are signs for those who know.
We got the green light. We are all speechless. And now we are SO CLOSE to completing our campaign!!! We just need $1,450! As an extra special treat, here’s our STAR Latresa Baker telling you about S’mores. Help us finish this movie! Help us get that last 20%! Follow the campaign! Link in bio.
HOMILY for the Wedding of Roxanne Castellas & Padraig O’Duffin
St Aloysius, Glasgow - 28 December 2021
Genesis 1:27-31; Ps 127; Eph 5:22-33; Matthew 19:3-6
The 28th of December is a very special day. And some might say, an especially fitting day for the wedding of these two beautiful young people. For the 28th of December is the feast of the Holy Innocents. So, behold! Insofar as one cannot judge the state of the soul of another, so perhaps one might argue over whether the adjective is, as yet, appropriate. And Olly or Aoife might have a few stories to tell that could change my mind about whether these two could be called ‘innocents’. However, there are many indications that today is truly a feast of the holy innocents, and not simply because I expect we shall be feasting (and dancing) later today.
To begin with, speaking as parish priest of a large parish in north west London, let me observe that this is probably one of the most religious and devout weddings I’be done in some time! From the moment Paddy and Roxanne spoke to me about their Nuptial Mass, they made it clear that their focus was on the Liturgy, on the solemn worship of God, and their concern was that Christ, our Lord and Saviour, should be at the centre of the proceedings. This speaks to me of holiness, or at least the salutary aspiration to become holy. And so the readings for today’s Mass come “straight out of the book”, so to speak, and give us a solid basis to reflect upon the beauty of Christian marriage. Firstly, the Old Testament reading reminds of how things were “in the beginning”, when man and woman were created equal, having the common dignity of every human being from the moment of conception to death that comes from our being made in God’s image and likeness.
Marriage especially honours and cherishes this equality and this dignity. Last night, as I listened to your parents speak about each of their children and of each of your different characters and of their deep love in helping you to grow and develop and flourish into the special individuals God has called you to be, I saw clearly the fine example that they have given you of this. It is within a Christian marriage, which as you know has as its proper end the raising of offspring and their education in the Faith so that they should become Saints, that the equality and dignity of the human person is fostered. And equality does not entail uniformity, for the dignity of the human person and our valuing of that dignity is found precisely in their being different from us, and thus having different opinions, ideas, and tastes and cultural backgrounds from us. Within a family, therefore, there will be disagreements and arguments and tensions, and each will have an equal right to speak and voice an opinion. I know, Paddy, that this is how the O’Duffin household thrives. But this frankness and robustness of conversation is possible principally because there is love. Likewise in the Church, if we’re to engage in genuine listening and dialogue, we must first be confident of the love of our pastors, and of one another within a parish and a religious community. It strikes me that as the O’Duffin family expands to take in daughters-in-law from three different continents, so it becomes even more a microcosm of the Church universal, which is called to model unity in diversity, and to be a true communion of love.
So, for a marriage and any family to thrive, it has to be founded on love, and there must be a certainty of this love. A Christian household, above all, must model this love because they have known first of all the love of God. And as St Paul says: “nothing can separate us from the love of God”. Therefore, each day as a couple, Roxanne and Paddy, grow in your knowledge and experience of God’s love. Taste the sweetness of his forgiveness and mercy. And then, what you have received from the Lord, give to one another and to your children. So, in the chapter before the one that you’ve chosen for today’s Mass, St Paul says: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” For before we can talk about the high Christian theology of marriage, we must first hear of the simple but demanding natural human virtues of kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness. Grace, after all, builds on nature. However, the kindnesses that your parents have shown me, and the gracious hospitality which I have received from you, Paddy and Roxanne, in these days suggests that you are well advanced in these virtues. So, keep it up!
But what about ‘innocents’? Can Roxanne and Padraig really be considered innocent? I have spoken to some who know you best, and from my own experience, I would say that innocence would be a good way of describing you. Now, some might laugh, especially the cynical who are jaded by the world. But I think what is precisely so appealing about you both is that, despite all that has been thrown at you, you have remained unspoiled by the world. For some would use the word ‘innocent’ disparagingly to mean naive and simplistic. I don’t. For me, innocence indicates a sense of goodness, sincerity, of being without guile. As Christians, we all know that the Lord tells us that we do not belong to the world because we have been consecrated in his Word of truth. Nevertheless, we must live in this sinful world without belonging to it, remaining unstained by it, and it seems to me that you know well this dynamic. After all, as I have observed, few other stag dos, I suspect, would begin with a call to attend Mass, and then a reminder about Sunday Mass afterwards. And never have I seen a prospective groom leave his rehearsal dinner to run off to sing the traditional monastic Compline. This goodness and innocence of heart are, I believe, a testimony to your parents, and to the good work of the University chaplaincy here in Glasgow. But as you leave the embrace of family and chaplaincy so as to set up your own household, and as you begin new careers in the navy and in the legal profession, you will need to be mindful of everything you’ve learnt until now. So recall the psalm response today: “fear the Lord”, that is to say, revere him, hold him in awe; and “walk in his ways”, so that you may be truly “blessed” and “all shall be well”. Yes, even when things don’t go as planned, and even when things seem disastrous, know that all shall be well. It takes faith to know this, and many things to come will try your faith, but remember this psalm 127 that you’ve chosen today, and pray it together, and live according to it, and then experience the beauty and joy and fidelity of Christian marriage that it proclaims. For this psalm calls you to a state of innocence.
St Thomas Aquinas says that the state of innocence is the pre-lapsarian state of obedience and harmony, wherein Man in obedience to God acted in accordance with nature, that is, subordinated to God’s wise and providential ordering of things. The chief characteristic of innocence, therefore, is obedience to God and trust in his providence. In the epistle from St Paul that has been read today, therefore, there is a call to return to the beginning, to the first innocence of our first parents, and marriage it seems is foundational to this. For the post-lapsarian work of re-creating us according to the pre-lapsarian state of obedience and harmony with God’s will, is never our own work. It cannot be accomplished by our wills, or sheer force of habit, or by our human natures however well-formed in natural virtues we may be. Rather, it is a work begun, sustained, and perfected by God’s grace. And God is always faithful, which is why Christ declares true marriage to be indissoluble lest we despair of his grace. Christian marriage, therefore, is a work of sanctifying grace, which is why St Paul firmly situates it within the redeeming work of Christ accomplished in his Church: “Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her.” Likewise, Christ, loving you, Paddy and Roxanne, has brought you to this day, that you might give yourselves up to each other, so that, as a couple, Christ might sanctify you. Remain in the innocence of together seeking the will of God and striving to obey him, and so shall you become truly holy.
It is fitting, therefore, that we celebrate these festivities today, on the festival of the Holy Innocents. For that is what you are, at least by aspiration, and certainly by Baptism what you are called to be. The Holy Innocents shed their blood for Christ, standing in his stead. And there are many times in your Christian lives, and in your life as a couple, joined today as one flesh, when you will need to sacrifice for the sake of Christ, for the sake of your marriage and your family, and for the sake of love, ultimately. Marriage lived well, therefore, and striving for holiness, will call for a white martyrdom, the marturion, the witness, of two innocents. Perhaps that is why the bride’s dress is white, although I recall that in India non-Christian brides would frequently wear red saris, the traditional colour for love, passion, and sacrifice. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the symbolism is the same - marriage demands of you, both the bride and the groom, a daily dying to self and living for others beginning with one’s spouse. Marriage and family life, therefore, is the school of charity.
The Headmistress of this school is Our Blessed Lady who, through her holy Rosary, will teach you the exemplars and meaning of charity. So, my dear innocent friends, if you wish to become a holy family, pray the Rosary daily, pray it together, and pray it with your children. As St Paul says, “The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Amen.
May Our Lady of the Rosary keep you in her care, and may St John Ogilvie, whose National Shrine this is, and the Holy Innocents and all the martyrs pray for you.
There seems to be a major disconnect about what it means for a conference to have disability representation. I’ve seen a version of this happen a number of times:
A panel on diversity or social justice has no disability representation.
No panelist talked about disability as a justice/diversity issue, or even alluded to disability experience.
A disabled person points out the problem to the organizers.
The organizers say something to the effect of “Actually, one of the panelists has [some disability or other]”.
Organizers are sometimes genuinely confused about why this isn’t a solution, and I’m realizing that this is in part because “representation” means at least two different things:
Sometimes representation just means diversity of panelists, ie:
There need to be panelists who are disabled (and in many context, there need to be panelists who are *openly* disabled).
This is important in part because when there are no openly disabled people on a panel, this is often a sign of disability discrimination.
(Especially if there are no disabled people on *any* panels at a conference, or there are only disabled panelists on disability-focused panels.)
In some contexts, diversity of panelists is enough.
Sometimes representation means literally being a representative of a community or movement:
Sometimes it’s not enough to have diverse panelists. Sometimes it’s necessary to have panelists who can represent other disabled people by speaking on behalf of an organized disability community or movement.
In many contexts, there need to be panelists who can speak from a position of expertise about disability issues.
For instance, if the topic of the panel is intersectional activism or collaborating across movements, you need someone who can represent at least some part of the disability activist community.
Diversity of identity is not enough in this case, because having an identity is not the same as representing an organized advocacy community.
Being disabled does not in and of itself make someone a well-informed representative of the organized disability rights community.
Sometimes conferences forget that disability is a justice issue, and neglect to book anyone who can address disability as a justice issue, eg:
A conference holds a panel on intersectional advocacy called “Showing up for each other: Owning our privilege and leaving no one behind”.
The panel consists of an LGBTQ group, an anti-racist group, an economic justice group, and a feminist group.
None of the panelists are disability rights leaders.
None of the panelists talk about disability rights issues.
None of the panelists even talk about their own disability experiences.
On a panel about intersectionality and showing up for each other, disability issues are completely overlooked.
Even if one of the panelists happens to have a disability or medical condition, this is still a problem.
(Especially if the organization holding the conference has a consistent pattern of overlooking disability issues.)
In this case, something has gone badly wrong and the conference needs to make an immediate plan for making sure it doesn’t happen again.
Sometimes conferences forget that diversity still matters when the topic isn’t disability or general intersectionality:
Not all disabled activists are disability rights activists.
Some disabled activists are focused primarily on other issues.
Eg: Some disabled activists are leading LGBTQ rights projects; some disabled activists are leading anti-racist organizations.
If disabled activists presenting about disability are the only disabled presenters at your conference, something has probably gone wrong.
If there are no disabled people presenting on any other topics, it’s important to think about what they is and what could be done to fix that.
Sometimes conferences forget that the disability community is diverse:
Many disability rights activists are also marginalized in other ways.
Many disability rights activists are also women, gay, trans, black, poor, Jewish, Muslim, immigrants, several of these, or otherwise multiply marginalized.
Eg: If all of the disability rights activists presenting at a conference are straight white Christian men, something has probably gone wrong.
If the range of disabled presenters at a conference doesn’t reflect the diversity of the disability community, it’s important to think about why that is and what could be done to fix that.
Here’s an example of representation in both the diversity sense and the community representative sense:
There’s a writing conference or a comic conference or something.
Access needs are met in ways that make it possible for disabled people to go to the conference and present at the conference (without facing insurmountable or humiliating barriers).
General panels about diversity have disabled panelists knowledgable about disability issues.
Panels that are specifically about disability are lead by disabled panelists.
Many panels about topics *other than* disability have panelists with disabilities on them, in numbers that reflect the fact that disability is common.
Some disabled panelists on panels about topics unrelated to disability/diversity talk about disability and some don’t.
(Because not all disabled people are or want to be disability advocates.)
Tl;dr Representation on panels means at least two things. Sometimes it means a diverse range of panelists; sometimes it means panelists who literally represent a diverse range of communities. Scroll up for reasons this matters, and what problems can be caused when only one type of representation is considered.
At the #weforwe @barneysnewyork and @thegirlslounge event with my fellow women professionals collaborating and networking for a more prosperous future for all. We’re talking about #woMENempowerment and #diversity! @the_arf (at New York Hilton Midtown)
What do you think of when you think of magical girl anime? Maybe you think of a lighthearted classic magical girl, like Sailor Moon. Maybe you think of something more modern or darker, like Madoka Magica. But no matter who you think of, odd are they share the following characteristics: light skinned, slim, and come from a typical background.
But the magical girl genre can be more than that. It’s a genre about people who use magic or hyper-advanced technology to become so much more than they typically are. That doesn’t have to be limited to just your typical anime pretty girl. Fortunately, there are anime that have expanded their reach and shown a more diverse vision of what the magical girl genre can be. That was the subject of Ninapedia’s panel “Diversity in the Magical Girl Genre”. Here are some of the anime she listed which embraces a more inclusive vision of magical girls:
PreCure: This is a long running magical girl franchise with, through its various iterations, has included a very diverse cast. There are characters which are LGBT, characters with a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds, including a biracial magical girl, characters with atypical family backgrounds, such as divorced or interracial parents, and characters which mental health issues, such as PTSD. Even the boys get in the act, with one of them, who identifies as a boy, publicly wearing a dress because he thinks it look pretty.
PriPara: This is a magical idol show with an impressive variety of body types. This show features a magical girl who is fat, but she isn’t shamed or excluded. It features adult magical girls, which is daring given Japanese cultural attitudes towards older women (look up the term “Christmas cake” if you’re unfamiliar). It also features a trans characters and a boy and a girl who cross-dress.
Revolutionary Girl Utena & YuriKuma Arashi: Ah, Kunihiko Ikuhara. If there’s a go-to person for works that deconstruct the magical girl genre, it’s Ikuhara. And as you would expect, that means lots of diversity. Both UtenaandYuriKumaare full of queer characters (heck, YuriKuma’sname translated to English is “Lesbian Bear Storm”), and rampant subversion of gender norms. Also, the character Anthy in Utena is a rare example of a magical girl whose skin is a truly dark color, without it just being a lighter skinned person with a tan.
But these are just a few of the series Ninapedia mentioned, and she went well beyond just anime. There is a large amount of non-anime magical girl projects with diverse casts (such as Emara: Emirates Hero & Steven Universe), as well as numerous indie media projects. So look around and you’ll be rewarded by the wide variety of viewpoints you can find in this one genre.
Fools! And where have you gone? Where are you going?
He was broken while breaking the chains that you, united in a cowardlyandhateful way in your manifold quality as dangerous lunatics, riveted logically and morally to his twenty year old rebel wrists in order to crushhis Uniqueness,his mystery, because he wasincomprehensibleto you, precisely as the complicated mind of one who feels complete in himself must be. Bruno Filippi hated. But the forces of Hatred did not crush the powers of Love within Him. He immolated himself in a fruitful embrace with death because he madly loved Life. We have the need and the entitlement to say of him that which was said of the D’Annunzian hero: “That the slaves of the marketplace turn around and remember!”
At the Museo Nacional de Antropología in CDMX there’s this beautiful mural of ethnic women harnessing their spiritual powers and I fell in love with it bc how often do you see art dedicated purely to women of coleur I think it’s gorgeous
El mural “Las razas y la cultura” fue un encargo especial concluido en 1964 por Jorge González Camarena. El mural muestra dos partes, una superior que está dedicada a las razas y la inferior a la cultura. Aquella parte superior muestra a 14 diosas que representan las razas del mundo, podemos ver sus rostros y atuendos coloreados en colores diversos, muestran además las palmas de sus manos, sus vestidos dirigen la vista al centro de la obra donde se presenta a la protagonista entre las diosas, es dorada, la raza del futuro, que es todas y a la vez ninguna, es otra, quizá conformada por ellas.
i hope that if there’s ever a Harry Potter reboot they hire more interesting costume designers to work on wizard fashion, because the book mentiones wizard fashion is way different from muggle fashion and i am very interested in how they would showcase that difference.
especially nowadays with cgi being so much better:
pattern that move
patterns that glow
BAND MERCH WHERE THE BAND IS ACTUALLY MOVING
kids with cute moving cartoons on their shirts
enchanted shoes that make you float just a tiny bit to make you look taller without high heels hurting your feet
also house emblems that move
while we’re at it actual robes instead of a uniform (would be cool if they actually change colour as soon as they’re sorted
long flowy clothes that float so they just don’t touch the ground
also NO/LESS OF A GENDER BINARY
teens and young adults mixing traditional wizard clothes with muggle clothes because leather/denim jackets and skinny jeans are cool and the wizarding world probably has hipsters as well
i could go on and on and on about the opportunities
Thank you very much! I think it’s main stylistic problem of the Harry Potter cinematic universe.
While there are lots of fascinating locations, magical creatures and richly animated magical spells, costume designs are mostly not boring, but not exciting enough for the wizarding world those movies are trying to portray.
There are outfits close to something interesting: Queenie Goldstein’s outfits, Leta Lestrange’ outfits, Nagini’s dress, some of the Yule Ball dresses, Beauxbaton’s school uniform, Kingsley looks and the whole Luna Lovegood’ hipster wizard style.
But those are only bright brush strokes on the mostly grey painting.
Costume choices could’ve been used to emphasize diversity and inequality. We know that there are charasters from different classes, with different origin, but we can’t actually see it on the screen. The only moment when movies visually show us inequality by costume choices, it’s Ron getting his Yule Ball outfit.
Even when Draco insults Ron with the words “hand-me-down robe”, the robe actually not quite different from the ones anybody else is wearing.
Most adult Comic-Con attendees knew who I was supposed to be (mostly). But the first child who wanted her picture taken with me had no idea what Hamilton was. She was young, black, and very excited to pose for a photo with a “princess.” So were her parents. She was bouncing and grinning, giving me the reaction generally reserved for Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. I was just thrilled. Even if she didn’t know who I was supposed to be, in a con filled with Belles, Arielles, and Auroras, she got to see a woman in a big, beautiful dress that looked like her. That’s all that mattered.
I wrote about Hamilton cosplay and character diversity at SDCC for Fusion today. Check it, here.
“Write what you know” isn’t an excuse to only write what you’re comfortable with. It’s an invitation to learn about different things so you can write more diversely.
The Overwatch Diversity Index thing is so funny to me bc I feel like Alan Grant seeing dinosaurs roam for the first time, I’m like “How can you exist, you were supposed to die years ago…”
It feels like an artifact that was transported to the present from the mid 2010s when people did act like diversity was quantifiable. Like God of course you soulless weirdos would have this bizarre setup where you funnel points into Ethnicity like you’re allocating points into DnD attributes or some shit, and God only knows how many people in 2016 would have seen that and been like “Wow this is a great tool to help you diversify your characters!”
(I mean I’m sure there are still people like that now but I like to imagine that for the most part people have grown tired of that kind of shit and largely demand higher quality rep)
There’s been a lot of talk about diversity and comics lately, or comics and politics. Here’s the fact: Comics have always been political.
Case in point: in this week’s Comics Crash Course, I discuss the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. I particularly tell the story of CCA Judge Charles Murphy banning “Judgment Day,” an explicitly anti-racist story from 1953.
The Code itself was a political move; the reason politics SEEMS absent from many comics in the mid-1950s is because it was purposely removed. This was, of course, a political move on the part of the CCA (and even influenced by the federal government via the Senate Subcommittee)
The Code wasn’t just about Wertham’s kooky ideas in Seduction of the Innocent, it was about making sure all comics upheld 1950s values regarding respect for government, police, and parents; “family values” in regards to sexuality and marriage; etc etc. That’s politics.
Politics in comics manifests in absence (especially when via its suppression) and presence. EC Comics and the establishment of the Comics Code only further proves comics has been a particularly political (and politically fraught) medium since the beginning.
