Team Arrow, Season 5.
This article is a response to the very thought-provoking article by Clarkisha Kent entitled You Ain’t Got the Juice: Why Arrow Has No Business Addressing #BlackLivesMatter
Full disclosure—Arrow is my number one show. I watch it more than any other show. I am actually watching it as I am writing this article. During the summers, rather than get accustomed to new shows, I go back and watch every season of Arrow from the beginning to see if I missed important context clues. My main shows outside of Arrow are The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Gotham. Beyond the last season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D where the Ghost Rider took the show to another level, I pretty much watch S.H.I.E.L.D. and Supergirl as I’m cleaning up the house. Oh yes, Daredevil and Luke Cage are also on my tops list. I say all of this to say that, like Kent, I am comfortable speaking knowledgeably on Arrow, though I probably need some assistance with my dev…o…bsession with the show.
It is for the aforementioned reasons that I was able to read the very thought -provoking article by Clarkisha on whether Arrow has the right to do an episode on #BlackLivesMatter. Once I got passed my annoyance of seeing this spoiler (I watch no trailers during the summer so everything can be fresh when I watch), I read through the article and would like to share some of the areas where I thought the article from The Root (which I love) is accurate as well as inaccurate. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll just go point by point.
1. On the argument that shows with no Black writers can’t discuss #BlackLivesMatter.
I know nothing of the color of the writing team for Arrow so I am going to take Kent’s word on it. Having said that, it is misguided to think that non-Black writers cannot speak on Black issues. First of all, I think that Guggenheim would not be foolish enough to at least research #BlackLivesMatter and possibly bring in some consultants. Generally speaking, #BlackLivesMatter focuses on making issues facing Black America understandable and relatable to and for all Americans. When non-Black people engage in our issues, it brings more attention to them. There would be no Civil Rights Era legal reforms without non-Black people being swayed by the marches and boycotts led by Black activists as well as images such as Emmett Till and the dogs attacking protesters broadcast across the globe.
One of the major mistakes in the study of the Civil Rights Movement was that even though the leaders and main organizers were Black, the movement was multiracial. Activists of all races lost their lives in that movement. The #BlackLivesMatter movement is also multiracial though created and led by powerful Black women. I have seen some #BlackLivesMatter protests and marches in places like Minnesota where the racial component of the majority of protestors was so white that I thought I was watching an #AllLivesMatter protest (if they ever did have marches).
If we want more people to understand our issues, we need to allow other people to engage us on our issues and if they get it wrong, hopefully they will be willing to learn. We also do not have uniformity on these issues. In my classes at American University, I often encounter students whose views would not be considered progressive for the Black community. Based on the way Arrow handled gun violence and gun control in season 5 (Spectre of the Gun), I am confident they can put together a quality or at least thought-provoking episode on #BlackLivesMatter. If they do not, I will be among the first to speak out on it. The fact of the matter is that if we want more people to understand #BlackLivesMatter as an American problem facing Black people primarily, more Americans must be invited to the conversation. We cannot just speak amongst ourselves and expect substantive change.
2. On the argument that Arrow has squandered every opportunity to discuss race or other means of marginalization in a meaningful way.
The main challenge with this argument is what does “meaningful” mean? At the end of the day, Arrow is about an ex-billionaire scion who puts on green leather and attempts to save a gun-ridden city with a bow and arrow. I don’t watch this show expecting a great commentary on race, but having said that, Arrow has indeed provided some commentary on race issues. Unlike Kent, I don’t expect any direct commentary from the Flash on social issues. The police chief is a gay person of color who is engaged. A Black father adopts a Black child. Their belief to me is that we should just look at these issues as normal or what could be normal in such a way that they don’t need to be commented on. I do have my issues with Iris’ love interests being all white males but that is an issue for another day.
Arrow has provided commentary on several issues dealing with race. For example, in season one, Green Arrow’s partner (not a sidekick) John Diggle, a Black man, chastises Oliver Queen (The Green Arrow) for wanting to open a night club in the Glades (the hood) because it will make Queen look like a savior but eventually speed up gentrification and the removal of people of color. In another episode, Diggle jokingly speaks of his frustration that his secret identity is as Oliver’s “Black driver.” When they battled the drug dealer “The Count” Diggle posed as a drug dealer and stated to Oliver after the buy that “a person of color has successfully purchased your drugs.” In the issue dealing with gun violence, Mr. Terrific, a new Black cast member to the show, speaks about how statistics make him three times more likely to be killed by a gun than anyone else. What more can we expect from a show like this? They provide subtle food for thought on race issues and I think that is good from a science fiction show. According to Kent, other CW shows take a colorblind approach to race. Arrow does not.
Furthermore, I do not understand what Kent means by Arrow’s “treatment of women of color.” I would love to engage in a conversation about that since I do not understand. The main issue I had with Black women in Arrow was that during the first season, all the Black women looked the same. My brother and I referred to them as the triplets because they fit the CW mold that Kent speaks about. Beyond that, I need more clarification because I have seen Black women as dark-skinned as Viola Davis and as light-skinned as Mariah Carey. They are all extremely intelligent and not all just there as a prop to a man (an assertion Kent does not make by the way).
Regarding John Diggle being a token, I think if Kent watched all seasons of Arrow, she would possibly have a different take on people of color on Arrow. I am going form memory alone but Arrow has had multiple Black characters including a police chief, a detective, a billionaire stepfather, a female leader of a team of villains, a female member (with braided hair) of the League of Assassins, a female Black villain with superpowers, a villainous archer, female superhero, gang leader, a season 4 villain on the island, 2 female heads of the secret agency A.R.G.U.S., a gay tech genius superhero, a female cop, a legal aid, and two toddlers. Let us not forget multiple appearances by Michael Jai White as Bronze Tiger. Most of these characters appear in the only three seasons that Kent watched. I can speak more about people of color in general on the show but one point I’ll raise is that by the second half of season 5, his team is mostly people of color with a woman who is part Asian and African, two Black men, and a Latino. The season 5 villain was Latino as well.
Continuing on Diggle, Kent refers to him as a man who “sees his character development continually shafted to make room for Oliver Queen’s brooding sessions.” On the contrary, Diggle is the only stable father on the show. He also teaches Oliver some things about parenthood when it’s revealed that Oliver is an absentee father. He tells Oliver that, unlike Oliver, he sees his daughter every night and always know where she is always. He also recommitted to his ex-wife before she was revealed to be pregnant and married her. Assuming that his wife Lila is Black (which I do though my brother disagrees), he is the only person in a stable Black marriage. He has also never cheated, which can’t be said about too many fathers on that show including Oliver, his father, and Malcolm Merlyn. The description of Diggle provided above challenges most of the stereotypes of Black men, although that whole killing his brother and temporary stint in prison didn’t help change any stereotypes. Luckily, he was cleared of all charges.
***Quick note on the author’s comments on the Lance sisters not reaching their full potential: Laurel does not stay “reckless” and Sara becomes the leader of her own team on Legends of Tomorrow. I would hardly call that being “written to the pine.”***
3. On Guggenheim’s treatment of the Glades.
I never looked at it in the manner the author did but quite honestly, she is quite on point on the idea that Malcolm Merlyn could have looked to help the Glades by helping the people instead of killing them all. Spot on.
In closing, I have not seen many superhero shows that tackle cultural issues of the day and I watch absolutely nothing on the CW besides the aforementioned shows. Some like Gotham avoid cultural issues entirely, but I appreciate shows like Arrow trying to address social issues. They may make mistakes of the head, but I don’t think they’re mistakes of the heart. I do believe that a better diversity of writers is needed for most shows out there, but I also have been disappointed with how some shows with all or majority Black writers or cast have treated some sensitive issues in their programming as well. At the end of the day, these shows can help spark conversation, just like the conversation that has been sparked by the mere mention of a #BlackLivesMatter episode on Arrow and that is a good thing.