Pop Culture Fix: Batwoman, Thunder and Grace Choi — Together at Last at #DCFandome

It’s Monday! And here is your first Pop Culture Fix of the week! 


+ #DCFandome threw down this weekend. It was actually pretty cool! I got very hype and also depressed about the Wonder Woman 1984 trailer because there’s no way it’s going to be safe to go see that movie in theaters this fall, and there’s also no way it’s coming to New York City. STREAM IT, DC — I WILL PAY!

+ The thing I loved most about Fandome, though, was the BAWSE Females of Color Within the DC Universe panel, which included Javicia Leslie, Nafessa Williams, Chantal Thuy, Candice Patton, Tala Ashe, Meagan Good; and was moderated by Estelle and D-Nice. My only complaint about it is that it was way too short. Like most of the other panels, it was only 20 minutes, but there was clearly enough content there for at least an hour-and-a-half panel, and I would like to see it all!

I loved watching Estelle talk to Nafessa about the impact of Garnet and Anissa! (“We stand for something major here.”) All the answers the actors gave about what they’d do with their characters’ superpowers IRL were so powerful. And when Javicia Leslie talked about drawing inspiration from Eartha Kitt’s activism, I felt like my heart would burst. Eartha Kitt, as you know, was Catwoman in the third season of the 1960s Batman TV series. Kitt was effectively banned from performing in the U.S. from 1968 to 1974 because of her Civil Rights activism, and during that time she grew really close to the LGBTQ community and became an activist there as well. Javicia naming Eartha’s revolutionary performance as the first Black Batman villain and naming her activism as something she wants to emulate as Batwoman during this uprising for Black lives — GAH! How can you not just be OVER THE MOON about this casting?

Nerds of Color have run down some of the best quotes from the panel. Geeks of Color were the AT&T partner for Dream in Black Blerd & Boujee After Party celebrating the power of the Black diaspora. And here’s the full panel.

+ The first look at the new Suicide Squad!

+ I’m not much into action-adventure shooters, but I am into Harley Quinn and this Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League trailer is pretty great.

+ Vida‘s Tanya Saracho has signed a major development deal with Universal and launching the Latinx Talent Lab.

+ Why are there so few Black directors in the Criterion collection?

+ TV Line says: “Five of All Rise‘s original seven writers — including the show’s three highest-ranking writers of color — will not be returning for season two after clashing with showrunner Greg Spottiswood (who is white) over the series’ depiction of race and gender.”

+ Season two of Euphoria is going to be on hold for a while, but the creative team is looking to do a bridge episode to tide you over.

+ CBBC airs groundbreaking show about transgender school girl.

+ Alana Mayo has been named president of MGM’s Orion Pictures.

+ I truly love that Jaime Murray and Joanne Kelly still hate that Bering and Wells didn’t get their happy ending on Warehouse 13.

+ What Ellen’s kindness concealed.

+ The Canadian remake of Brooklyn Nine-Nine is white as hell and Melissa Fumero is not happy about it.

+ Olivia Wilde is going to direct a new Spider-Woman movie maybe?

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1719 articles for us.

5 Comments

  1. That DC BAWSE panel was awesome! Javicia seems SO COOL, and I cannot wait to see her as Batwoman.
    I also really appreciated Tala Ashe’s comments about how LOT hired a Muslim writer alongside creating a Muslim-American character–it’s something I think every show should consider.

  2. + Everything I’ve heard/read from Javicia Leslie thus far just makes me even more excited about what’s coming up on Batwoman.

    + I’m so excited about Tanya Saracho’s deal. She’s going to make something (else) great.

    + I’m so mad about the situation behind the scenes at All Rise, I’m not sure I can watch the show ever again…and I really enjoyed it.

    + I love seeing Alana Mayo’s glow up.

    • re: all rise – really hate how you finally get a network show that’s not majority white/male, only to find out that behind the scenes totally is, and and they’re terrible. like, i want skip b/c cbs has been really terrible about holding the white men who work for them accountable, but if they see a drop in ratings and chalk it up to ‘people don’t watch shows that aren’t white/male majority/centered’, that’s not a positive outcome. and Simone Missick so deserves to be heading a show.

  3. I was completely fascinated by how many people on Twitter were commenting on the Escouade 99/Brooklyn Nine-Nine thing by pulling up demographics of Montreal (or the whole province of Quebec) rather than Quebec City where the remake is actually set. I agree with the general point: Canadian shows (French and English) are almost all terrible at getting representative diversity right (the number of Toronto or Vancouver cop shows with no Sikh characters is ridiculous), but the demographic differences between Montreal and Quebec City are *so* massive that holding up Montreal statistics is completely meaningless.

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