TY - BOOK ID - 139011884 TI - The Dark Fantastic PY - 2019 SN - 1479864196 9781479864195 9781479824731 1479824739 9781479800650 1479800651 PB - New York, NY DB - UniCat KW - Fantasy fiction, American KW - Fantasy fiction, English KW - Literature and race. KW - Black people in literature. KW - History and criticism KW - Theory, etc. KW - African American studies. KW - Afrofuturism. KW - Angelina Johnson. KW - Bonnie Bennett. KW - Christina Sharpe. KW - Guinevere. KW - Hamilton. KW - King Arthur. KW - Kinitra Brooks. KW - Merlin. KW - Rue. KW - Suzanne Collins. KW - The Vampire Diaries. KW - Toni Morrison. KW - colorblind casting. KW - counterstorytelling. KW - critical media studies. KW - critical medieval studies. KW - critical race theory. KW - dystopia. KW - fairy tale. KW - fairy tales. KW - fan studies. KW - fantasy. KW - horror. KW - imagination gap. KW - legend. KW - monster culture. KW - racial innocence. KW - romance. KW - science fiction. KW - speculative fiction. KW - storytelling. KW - teen television. KW - vampires. KW - young adult literature. KW - 18.06 Anglo-American literature. KW - African Americans KW - Blacks in literature. KW - Jugendliteratur. KW - Kinderliteratur. KW - Race in literature. KW - Schwarze Frau KW - Storytelling in mass media. KW - Weibliche Jugend KW - Intellectual life. KW - Englisch, ... KW - Imagination KW - Race KW - Fantasy anglaise KW - Storytelling. KW - Noirs américains KW - Dans la littérature. KW - Thèmes, motifs KW - Grande-Bretagne. KW - Vie intellectuelle. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:139011884 AB - Reveals the diversity crisis in children's and young adult media as not only a lack of representation, but a lack of imagination. Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children’s publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not all lives matter. The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fanfiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century: Bonnie Bennett from the CW’s The Vampire Diaries, Rue from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC’s Merlin, and Angelina Johnson from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Analyzing their narratives and audience reactions to them reveals how these characters mirror the violence against black and brown people in our own world. In response, Thomas uncovers and builds upon a tradition of fantasy and radical imagination in Black feminism and Afrofuturism to reveal new possibilities. Through fanfiction and other modes of counter-storytelling, young people of color have reenvisioned fantastic worlds that reflect their own experiences, their own lives. As Thomas powerfully asserts, “we dark girls deserve more, because we are more.” ER -