why Netflix's "Gilmore Girls" made us jump

The "Ginny & Georgia" series has a neat place in the top 10 most watched movies and series on Netflix. However, a few details pose big problems.

The new series Ginny & Georgia, it's a bit like the promise of a new Gilmore Girls. And if it's hard to match the cult 2000s series, Ginny & Georgia has the merit of addressing strong themes. We discover the relationship between a (very) young mother, Georgia, and her daughter, Ginny. After a move, a new life begins for both of them, but also for the youngest of the family, Austin. We're going to have to fit in and deal with some injunctions, as well as Georgia's painful and mysterious past. A palette of emotions unfortunately spoiled by two balls that do not pass.

A sexist remark on Taylor Swift's love life

Some replicas of Ginny & Georgia the hairs of Taylor Swift fans but also feminists stand on end. We hear one of the characters say: "What can that do to you? You hook guys up faster than Taylor Swift." While some saw it as a simple valve of a fictional character, others denounce a stigmatizing commentary on the private life of Taylor Swift and that says a lot about the injunctions imposed on women.

Indeed, one is indeed faced with a completely normalized judgment on his private life and his "many" romantic relationships. Certain Internet users have also pointed out that a number of male personalities have dozens of conquests on the counters. However, they are never judged in this way on their private life.

In fact, singer Taylor Swift herself reacted on Monday, March 1, 2021.“Hey Ginny & Georgia, the year 2010 called and she wants her deeply sexist joke back. How about stop degrading hard-working women by pretending this line is funny? Happy Women's Rights Month, I suppose…", she posted on Twitter.

This is not the first time that Taylor Swift has spoken out against the sexism she faces. In 2014, on Australian radio 2DayFM, she explained: "There are people who sum it up by saying 'She just writes songs about her ex-boyfriends', and frankly, that's a really sexist point of view. (…) Nobody says that about Ed Sheeran or Bruno. Mars. Yet they write about their exes, their girlfriends, their love life, and no one is putting out a red flag. "

A conversation between two mixed-race teens that poses a problem

If this passage of Ginny & Georgia makes jump, it is not the only one. Newly arrived in a new town after having been around quite a bit with her mother, Ginny is in the middle of a teenage crisis and is desperately searching for herself. In particular, she asks herself many questions about her crossbreeding. His connection to his hair, the unhealthy curiosity of others as to his origins are interesting demonstrations of the systemic pressure weighing on Métis people. However, certain reflections around these themes do not pass.

During Episode 7, Ginny and her boyfriend Hunter have a somewhat lunar conversation about their respective interbreeding, Hunter being of American-Taiwanese descent. Their exchange is of nameless violence. He begins when Ginny thinks their teacher is racist because he didn't win her an essay contest. Hunter, for his part, thinks not and feels legitimate because he too is mixed race. But for Ginny, her situation is different because she is of African descent. "Asians are associated with intelligence, genius", she proclaims. The result is a series of stereotypes that the two teens together try to deconstruct.

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For this, both share the oppressions suffered: Ginny is a victim of mysoginoir, Hunter also evokes his fears as an Asian man. The problem being that, as Hunter points out, this conversation becomes a "Olympics of oppression." Ginny pulls out the worst remark ever: "You are whiter than I will ever be." And that's without counting this incomprehensible response from Hunter: "The two of us are white." Ginny evokes the fact of speaking Mandarin, that Hunter likes to eat burgers… Hunter criticizes Ginny for not knowing how to twerk and not to eat chicken… In fact, in a better world, Ginny and Hunter could have shared the oppressions together. 'they endure without trying to find out which one suffers the most.

On Twitter, some Internet users have also noted the lack of realism of this scene: "As a Métis person, I have never had a conversation like this with any of my mixed race friends, notes a surfer. I don't represent all Métis people, but that's not how we approach the subject, at least not me. " Other Internet users have pointed out that Ginny has fair skin and that her speech never mentions the reality of people even more discriminated against than she and, once again, invisible in a cultural production: black women at the dark skin.

If the first episodes of the Netflix series accurately evoke the microaggressions experienced by Métis people, there are only two episodes that were written by racialized screenwriters, Mike Gauyo and Briana Belser. You will understand: episode 7 is not one of them. Ginny & Georgia therefore left with great initiatives, but once again we can see the importance of hiring the right people to deal with certain subjects.