One thing I’m so grateful for in the TAZ verse is that there are – and this may seem like a weird way to put it – adult women.
I don’t just mean women who are in their thirties or forties and look like Hollywood actresses. I’m talking about women in their fifties and sixties and older who are still living their lives and loving their lives. I’m talking about Lucretia, a woman in her mid-fifties who has white hair and an air of authority and an amazing sense of humor and is the savior of the multiverse. I’m talking about Cassidy, a woman in her sixties who makes a new friend and starts a new career after her previous one falls apart. I’m talking about Paloma, the “oldest person [Taako’s] ever seen in real life” who is an integral plot point and laughs at dick jokes. I’m talking about Mama, a woman in her fifties (?) who drives around in a truck and is a badass protector of a bunch of vampires and ghosts and gets into enough shit that she has to stumble into the lodge, her duster in bad shape and leaning on her shotgun.
So often in media, I see stories either focused on young women (my age into early thirties), or, even if the characters and/or actors are supposed to be older, who look no older than thirty. I want something to look forward to – I want to be able to look into the future and see myself aging and still see myself living a full life and fighting monsters and saving the world, wrinkles and greying hair and all. I don’t want my media to stop once I turn thirty, or even forty. I want to imagine that I’ll keep living beyond that, and keep loving my life. These characters are so important to me because I want someone to look up to and something to look forward to. So thank you, Griffin, for giving me those women, not prettifying them or smoothing over their flaws and wrinkles. Thank you for letting them be big and loud and funny and happy. Thank you for allowing me to see a glimpse into my own future, hopefully, and look forward to it with joy and expectation.
“Here is a story to believe,” she said. “Once we were blobs in the sea, and then fishes, and then lizards and rats and then monkeys, and hundreds of things in between. This hand was once a fin, this hand once had claws! In my human mouth I have the pointy teeth of a wolf and the chisel teeth of a rabbit and the grinding teeth of a cow! Our blood is as salty as the sea we used to live in! When we’re frightened the hair on our skins stands up, just like it did when we had fur. We are history! Everything we’ve ever been on the way to becoming us, we still are. Would you like the rest of the story?”
Tell us, said the hiver.
“I’m made up of the memories of my parents and grandparents, all my ancestors. They’re in the way I look, in the colour of my hair. And I’m made up of everyone I’ve ever met who’s changed the way I think. So who is ‘me’?”
The piece that just told us that story, said the hiver. The piece that’s truly you.
☆Knight star☆ 