*Article* **Now It's My Time! Black Girls Finding Space and Place in Comic Books**

**Grace D. Gipson**

Department of African American Studies, College of Humanities and Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA; gipsong@vcu.edu

**Abstract:** This essay examines how Black girl narratives are finding and making space and place in the arena of comic books and television. With the rise in Black girl (super)hero protagonists on the comic book pages and adapted television shows, it is essential to explore the significance of their rising inclusion, visibility, and popularity and understand how they contribute to the discourse surrounding the next generation of heroes. Guided by an Afrofuturist, Black feminist, and intersectional framework, I discuss the progressive possibilities of popular media culture in depicting Black girlhood and adolescence. In Marvel Comics' "RiRi Williams/Ironheart", DC Comics' "Naomi McDuffie", and Boom! Studios' "Eve", these possibilities are evident. Blending aspects of adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, and STEM, each character offers fictional insight into the lived experiences of Black girl youth from historical, aesthetic, and expressive perspectives. Moreover, as talented and adventurous characters, their storylines, whether on the comic book pages or the television screen, reveal a necessary change to the landscape of popular media culture.

**Keywords:** Black girlhood; superheroes; popular culture; comic books; Marvel Comics; DC Comics; Boom! Studios; Black girls; Black girl joy; imagination

#### **1. Why Black Girls?**

In the winter of 2020, *The Black Scholar* featured a Special Issue on "Black Girlhood" (Lewis 2020, pp. 1–3) that shined a light on the significance, challenges, and beauty of Black girls. This Special Issue covered an array of topics that include analyzing representations of Black girls in the 2020s protest movement, musical theater, literature, Black girlhood personified in digital communities and new media technologies, Black girls in the Marvel Universe, as well as testimonials of Black girls sharing their own girlhood experiences. As a collection of articles, testimonials, and book reviews, "Black Girlhood" builds on the established work of literary writers, playwrights, and scholars such as Ruth Nicole Brown, Toni Cade Bambara, Nazera Sadiq Wright, Kristen Childs, Bettina Love, LaKisha Simmons, Venus Evans-Winters, and Monique W. Morris. Tapping into the literary and political authority of these authors, the issue at the same time answers the question why Black girls matter and offers another platform for Black girls to be seen and heard. Additionally, this issue delivers several interdisciplinary conversations around the intersectionality of Black girls, incorporates a global focus, and serves as a motivation for this article.

Black girlhood has a very layered and complex past. Whether we are talking about the recorded experiences of enslaved Black girls,<sup>1</sup> about centering Black child/girlhood in photographic form,2 the 1940s Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll studies, the threat of loss of black girls' life and innocence in the 1960s, or the report "Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls' Childhood" (Epstein et al. 2017) produced by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, Black girlhood remains a heavily discussed topic. For more than 20 years, multi-disciplinary scholars of Black girlhood have identified the ways in which these girls have been disproportionately represented (based on race and gender), their marginalized status, educational inequity, the violence directed towards them, and

**Citation:** Gipson, Grace D. 2023. Now It's My Time! Black Girls Finding Space and Place in Comic Books. *Arts* 12: 66. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/arts12020066

Academic Editors: Daniel Stein and Niels Werber

Received: 28 January 2023 Revised: 14 March 2023 Accepted: 23 March 2023 Published: 28 March 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

recently the ways in which they embody traits of #BlackGirlMagic, joy, and empowerment. However, while there are discussions of Black girlhood experiences within the academy and the larger landscape of popular culture, what is not discussed in great detail is the specific way in which comic book storytelling contributes to the Black girlhood narrative. Thus, the question is further expanded to *why Black girls in comics?*

In this article, I seek to see Black girls as a whole through the lens of three fictionalized comic book characters, Marvel Comics' RiRi Williams ("Ironheart"), DC Comics' Naomi McDuffie, and Boom! Studios' Eve. Bridging my wide interest in Blackness and popular culture with my personal and professional passion for comic books, I aim to respond to the call for a critical analysis of Black girlhood while establishing more lanes of inquiry. A larger set of thoughts that I want to explore is the dynamics of Blackness in comics, particularly Black girlhood, and what is necessary for it to have more academic representation. Additionally, it is necessary to explore these characters' existence and representation in popular culture (particularly around defining and maintaining popularity in the sense of being widely read, bought by many, maintaining a regular viewership, and generating ongoing online discussions), while achieving change in people's conceptions of these characters. When thinking about Black girlhood, I do not see it as experiences defined by one meaning but as an illustration of a variety of emotions, experiences, and personalities. There is a constant push–pull and complex relationship that Black girls have with society, media, and their own identity formation. Historically, Black girl characters have been repeatedly neglected, adultified, and written as one-dimensional compared to their male and white counterparts (Edwards 2016). This is especially visible in the comic book narrative. Moreover, their growing existence in comic book narratives is a success considering they were not common characters.

As a Black woman who was once a Black girl, I see this article as part of an ongoing investment in the futures of Black girls and teens. Furthermore, as a Black female scholar in Africana Studies who is both a researcher and fan of comic books, I view this article as an academic social experiment of cross-disciplinary collaboration (Africana Studies, Black girlhood Studies, and comic books studies). I fully take up the responsibility, personal passion, and sense of urgency to recognize the need for Black girls to have a voice (whether fictional or reality) and to be normalized within the popular comic book narrative. Moreover, engaging in the narratives of RiRi, Naomi, and Eve provides an innovative opportunity to create new ways of understanding how Black girls question the status quo and create change where their voices have been systematically excluded. With the work that I do as a teacher and researcher, my personal and professional passion involves creating curriculum and spaces that offer healing, transformation, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It is essential that not only scholars conduct the research, but that students, particularly Black girls, see themselves in the literature and popular culture so that they can achieve a multitude of Black girls' perspectives. Additionally, it is just as important that these comics find a space outside the classroom as they have the potential to appeal to a mass of new and seasoned readers and fans from all ages, genders, nationalities, and backgrounds. The works in question tell stories in a conventional, serialized format while also highlighting different types of Blackness, working towards some level of commercial success and popular recognition.

My argument in this article is guided by a triple-point of view framework of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991), Black feminism (Collins 2000), and Afrofuturism (LaFleur 2011; Womack 2013). I try to shed light on gender, race, class, and the imagined futures of Black girls simultaneously, via popular culture and the comic book medium, in order to highlight Black girl experiences. Each of these frameworks offers an opportunity for Black girl superhero characters to become an integral part of the comic book narrative, which has been traditionally owned by adult white men. Bridging these frameworks also creates conversations past and future between Black feminism, Afrofuturism, Girlhood studies, and comic book studies. These lines of intellectual inquiry can also create possibilities for establishing a space to interrogate and move beyond academic borders. As Paula

Giddings argues, Black feminist narratives seek to address past and present oppressions, stereotypes, and controlling images to be subverted and corrected so that new forms of activism can emerge to tell the stories of Black women and girls (Giddings 1984). Thus, when an Afrofuturist framework is added, an examination of belonging, healing from oppression, re-writing past and present scripts, and taking hold of the future particularly in this case of the Black female ensures another avenue to facilitate new stories of Black girls within the comic book narrative. Using Afrofuturism also empowers Black girls to employ their creative imaginations, which allows for further exploration of how Black girlhood experiences are not monolithic. Through these frameworks and the characters in question, using a popular3 medium such as comic books, their narratives explore transformation, reclamation, #BlackGirlMagic, Black girl joy and empowerment, resistance, and perseverance, which are key elements of Black feminism and Afrofuturism.

#### **2. Black Girl Representation in Comics**

Being Black and a girl in today's U.S. society is an involved action that is filled with racial and gender biases and is often met with adversity (Gipson 2022). When you factor in representation in pop culture and comic books, Black girl experiences become part of an unfortunate imbalance. As noted by Ruth Nicole Brown (2009), a celebration of Black girlhood and her many experiences centers on the everyday achievements that are in actuality not so commonplace. Nevertheless, there is a rising class of Black girl characters who are tipping the scales and making their presences known. A recent and consistent example that places Black girlhood at the center can be found in the all-ages comic book series *Princeless* from Action Lab, by creator and writer Jeremy Whitley. Inspired by his own daughters to change the narrative of young girls waiting to be saved or rescued by their "prince", Whitley, through a Black girl lead, created a story that disrupts gender binaries, challenges and questions the expectation and stereotypes associated with being a princess. Another example of a Black girl protagonist can be seen in *Milestone Media*'s4 Raquel "Rocket" Ervin. Rocket's storyline adds another layer of sophistication as her story deals with issues of police violence, income inequality, and a rare occurrence in comic books, teen pregnancy. What makes her narrative compelling is that her storyline as a teen mother becomes an example of persistence and perseverance. A final example can be seen in Robert Garrett's *Ajala: A Series of Adventures*. As an independently published coming-of-age sci-fi series, it tells the story of a pre-teen budding superheroine, Ajala, from Harlem, New York, who is on a mission to protect her community from looming crime and vice. Through her story, readers go on a journey with Ajala as she navigates her high-school, family dynamics, and friendships, along with issues of gentrification. Each of these characters, as well as the ones to follow, invoke what it means to be different, have a sense of pride in being a Black girl, and what a future looks like when they are seen in it.

With a gradual rise in consistent mainstream Black girl comic book depictions (Marvel Comics' Moon Girl/Lunella Lafayette [2015] and Shuri [2018]; DC Comics' Thunder/Anissa Pierce and Lightning/Jennifer Pierce [2018] and Sojourner "Jo" Mullein/Green Lantern; Milestone Media Rocket [2021]),5 it becomes necessary to highlight the significance of the above-mentioned characters, as well as others, in order to combat the lingering stereotypical representations and imbalances. For many fans, "female comic book representation is something that creators have been slowly inching towards, giving us diverse women something to look up to" (Dominguez 2022). Grounded by my personal and academic interest in exploring the representations of race and gender in comic books, it was important that the characters selected for my analysis spoke to the need to address a lack of representation and that I would also acknowledge existing Black girl characters in comics and popular culture, including the notion that there have been limited viewpoints for Black girls. Centering Black girl narratives in comics contributes to and allows for, the opportunity to build and embrace more diverse representations. If Black girls are only relegated, in the white imagination, as one-dimensional, as being loud, troublemakers, sassy/having an attitude, othered, seen as inhuman/monstrous or as an enemy/villain, their existence in and out of

reality is simply a dream deferred or snuffed out (Evans-Winters 2005; Morris 2007, 2016; Wright 2016; Kelly 2018; Halliday 2019; Thomas 2019; Hines-Datiri and Carter Andrews 2020). Images over time can become tools of empowerment, change ideologies, and even dismantle tropes, all of which speak to the work and efforts of intersectionality, Black feminism, and Afrofuturism. If youth grow up without diverse images and depictions, whether in books, television, and films, they are, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie argues, confined to the dangers of a 'single story'6 ultimately affecting their imaginations of the world around them (Thomas 2019). For this reason, highlighting an array of Black girl experiences in comic books (mainstream works from Marvel and DC and independent publications from Boom! Studios) can play a role in breaking the status quo, while giving Black girls a chance to evade social, civic, and imaginative death (Brown 2013). If these Black girls (whether fiction or reality) and their narratives are to garner attention and hopeful popularity, they have to be given a chance to exist.

#### **3. The Art of Storytelling through Marvel Comics RiRi Williams/"Ironheart"**

I am a firm believer in the idea that everyone has a story to tell and that it is just a matter of people tuning in to listen to this story. One's story has the ability to shape opinions, reinforce or disrupt stereotypes and biases, and highlight a world that had never been imagined. Such stories have the power to "sustain us through oppression, transmit our ancient and precious traditions through all kinds of adversity ... stories that move beyond the shadows to become known across the world are always connected to power, positioning, and privilege" (Thomas 2020, p. 2). And stories like that of Marvel Comics' RiRi Williams ("Ironheart") can inspire and formulate a sense of normalcy (especially in the STEM fields) and social acceptability, while also contributing to filling the "imagination gap" of youth literature.7 Created by comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, RiRi makes her first comic book appearance in *Invincible Iron Man* Vol. 2 #7 in May 2016. Growing up as a child genius, RiRi is able to home in on her science and technological skills and talent and take up the mantle of continuing the Iron Man legacy as "Ironheart." Breaking into the comic book scene during Marvel Comics' move toward broadening their audience (tapping into the pre-teens and adolescent fanbase) and creating more diverse characters, RiRi presents a brilliant Black STEM girl who is a Tony Stark fan but has also created her own suit. RiRi's actions receive the attention of Tony Stark. They lead to a meeting of the two characters and the establishment of mutual respect. While this is a part of her story, it is just the beginning. Because she is popular, the RiRi character is useful for "what Marvel has always done over the course of their history: creating a diverse universe of characters that appeal to people from all walks of life" (Tapley 2016). In the sections to follow, I want to share numerous perspectives of RiRi's story, which include her redesigned appearance in Eve Ewing's *Ironheart* series, a special appearance in a live-action video short for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Admissions department, and appearances in film and television.

#### *3.1. Flexing the Pen to Write Black Girl Intelligence*

To be young, gifted, Black, nerdy, and female is an identity that taps into this notion of standing out and being different. As a newer character in the comic book medium and Marvel universe as well as a superhero genius, RiRi creates a lane for young girls to simply show up, to maintain their youth, and see themselves as part of the script without having to picture themselves as adults. As adventure-seekers and scientists, it is important to have these visible representations. RiRi's entrance into the Marvel Comics universe was even praised and endorsed by the MCU's Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr., who announced: "*Get ready for a new generation of Marvel BAMF* ... " (Figure 1). This tweet is doubly significant in that it helps to ease the minds of many fans who are attached to the classic version while also offering a sense of applicability for the entrance of a teenage Black girl superhero in a large, mainstream comic book universe. The tweet was liked more than 11,000 times, quote-tweeted more than 1300 times, and retweeted 28,500 times, which

indicates both Downey's reach as an actor from the MCU and the willingness of a sizable segment of Marvel followers to recognize these new Black Girl characters.

**Figure 1.** Tweet from Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. in support of Riri Williams taking over for Tony Stark in the *Iron Man* comics (7/7/16).

While RiRi's character makes her debut in May 2016, her story and personality take flight when University of Chicago sociology professor/poet Dr. Eve E. Ewing takes over the writing reigns after the departure of Brian Michael Bendis in 2018.<sup>8</sup> It is also important to note that 2016 serves as a #BlackGirlMagic<sup>9</sup> year for Marvel Comics when they hired three Black women writers (Eve Ewing, Roxane Gay, and Yona Harvey). This hiring of Black and queer women, invoking #BlackGirlMagic, is noteworthy and historical as it had not been done before. Black women are making space not just as characters, but as writers of the "comic script" (we would also see a rise in Black female illustrators during this time as well). With a revised series title, *Ironheart* went from simply being a "girl Iron Man" to teen student, inventor, and superheroine. As the lead writer, Ewing personalizes and humanizes RiRi's story to include the loss of her stepfather and best friend and a necessary narrative of her Chicago origin story. As a result of Ewing's revision and as a departure from Bendis's caricature-like presentation, RiRi is given some humanity as a Black teen and becomes what Deborah Whaley calls a "sequential subject" (Whaley 2016, p. 8). Her character is not a diversity-checked box, but a representation of real and imagined Black girlhood.

Through Ewing's writing, readers are able to take in Black inner-city Chicago life as personified by a teenager, without it being overrun by trauma and violence as portrayed in the previous *Invincible Ironman* series. In the opening pages of *Ironheart* issue #5, we see present-day Chicago on a summer day. Organized in two-tier columns with a total of six panels, the comic offers a range of scenes with a diverse cast, including a police car driving in front of a liquor store with a group of men engaging in conversation outside of the store; a small business owner setting up his 'Tamales Café' stand; a group of young men drumming on paint buckets; a group of kids playing in the water of an exposed fire hydrant; a homeless man digging through a trash can. Closing out the page is Riri's mother, who appears stressed working as she going through some important budgeting or accounting documents. What makes the series of panels personable is Riri's voice as she narrates each scene. Her thoughts range from how her city is perceived: "*I live in a city that people call dangerous*"; to finding the small wins of Chicago: "*the place that makes other people feel good about where they lay their heads at night*"; to the realization that "*people here are struggling to survive* ... *and a wise person once told me that the business of survival ain't always pretty*" (Ewing 2019b, Ironheart #5). This panel highlights RiRi's vulnerability and her inside perspective into the Chicago she knows. She describes the adversity, the joys, and the stress and conveys an understanding that how one sees something depends on one's own vantage point. Although a native of Chicago, RiRi can provide an outside perspective without being voyeuristic, still giving it some sort of identity. Her awareness of the perception of others (a subtle jab towards Bendis's controversial interpretation)10 is narrated in her own voice. Through each of these panels, Ewing provides a reclaiming of her voice and a sense of authority to RiRi to critique outside depictions and celebrate the strengths of her home city. The issue opens with working in the importance of a Black child's innocence and perspective. Ewing's personal connection as a Black woman from Chicago who also has an academic background (as a trained sociologist) offers a shift in the comic book narrative, where the majority of writers (and artists) have been white and male, such as Bendis.

In addition to RiRi recognizing and celebrating Black life, we also get to see her step outside superhero mode and bond with fellow Black girl peers. While RiRi normally operates as a solo hero, in issue #10, "The Enemy Within," RiRi teams up with fellow Black girl Marvel heroines Shuri and Silhouette. Ewing writes the script for this issue from a team mindset that is full of laughter and action. As RiRi walks into the group meeting with Shuri and Silhouette, a playful back and forth takes place, with Silhouette assigning a cute nickname: "*Finally the gang's all here. So listen here's what we need to do Shuriri* ... ." Taken off guard, Shuri replies, "*Silhouette did you just call us Shuriri?*" To which RiRi quickly quips, "*That's a NO. Hard Pass*." The humor builds as Silhouette continues to try and sell the name to RiRi and Shuri: "*Oh come on. It's an adorable nickname, like Brangelina*" (Ewing 2019a, Ironheart #10). The childlike banter between the young ladies becomes a way to transition into a more serious conversation about family and legacy. Showcasing these friendships and relationships is important and necessary, as readers and fans "will have the ability to absorb the imagery and portrayals in the comics they read, subconsciously referring back to them" (Schwein 2020).

Due to RiRi's loner status, she often does not get to cultivate friendships beyond linking up with other superheroes. So, in the next moment, she capitalizes on being transparent and opens up about the impact the loss of her stepfather has had on her. The conversation begins with RiRi asking Silhouette why she is helping her and Shuri in this latest mission. The conversation quickly shifts to Shuri sharing her appreciation of the relationship she has with her father: "*[M]en always think they know what's best. My father was different. He treated me like I always knew things. But he also always had wisdom to share*". Noticing that RiRi is being quietly observant, Shuri shifts the conversation: "*You're awfully quiet, RiRi. What about you? Do you have a good relationship with your father?*" This triggers a shaken pause for reflection, with RiRi responding, *"Hm? Oh. He's dead. But I had a pretty special relationship with him. My stepfather, I mean. I had a pretty good relationship with him*" (Ewing 2019a, Ironheart #10). With each panel, the reader gets a back-and-forth close-up shot of RiRi, then Shuri, and back to RiRi. In between, RiRi further acknowledges that her biological father is dead as well but that she never met him so there was nothing to miss. Shuri attempts to wrap up the conversation with a closing thought: "*It seems like* ... *you've been through A LOT*." And in a semi-sarcastic response, RiRi replies, "*Yeah, well it be like that sometimes*" (Ewing 2019a, Ironheart #10). In this tense but candid exchange, the young women bond over their paternal connections, and RiRi finds herself being receptive to sharing her grief. Even in their youth, they affirm each other, while understanding the need to be a listening ear for each other and grasping that they can collectively come together as a sisterhood to support each other.

#### *3.2. A Decision to Reach beyond the Page*

Not only has RiRi's story made an impact on the comic book pages,<sup>11</sup> but it has also become a part of the culture beyond comics through Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) recruitment and admission. On March 2017, MIT Admissions released a studentmade short film based on the debut of the Marvel Comics character in order to inform

prospective students of the university's decisions announcement.12 The short film starred real-life MIT chemical-engineering major Ayomide Fatunde (MITbloggers 2017). Describing the film, MIT Admissions noted that "although Riri Williams is a fictional MIT black woman, she's played by a real MIT black woman, directed by a real MIT black woman, and 'lives' in a real MIT black woman's dorm room, something I thought was pretty awesome" (Gano 2017). This becomes a significant moment as MIT uses the character of RiRi, a Black young woman, to usher in future MIT students. With the tagline *not all heroes wear capes, but some carry tubes*, MIT was not only signaling the significance of Black girlhood to the incoming class; it also recognized the potential of women in the STEM field. As a creative recruitment tool, the action video follows RiRi (Ayomide) as she goes from sitting in class to designing and building her own super suit in her dorm room (Figure 2) and eventually heading to the office of Stu Schmill, Dean of Admissions, to help him carry out the important task of making some future incoming MIT students' dreams come true.

**Figure 2.** Still shot of MIT student Ayomide Fatunde as RiRi Williams/Ironheart for Pi Day 2017.

The 'what-if' style film "shows that all of Riri's characteristics can be found, collectively, among all of the black women at MIT, and I'm glad that there's now an additional story among all the fictional stories where people can witness this identity" (Gano 2017). Thus, the decision of the students and MIT to incorporate both RiRi and her alter-ego "Ironheart" in their decision process is notable, given the prestigious status of MIT and the current Hollywood climate of emerging Black female superheroes. Seeing Ayomide, a real-life STEM student, RiRi enables young Black women, whether in high school or on the MIT campus, to imagine themselves as future engineers. The creators also tap into the "interesting ways in which Black folks use fiction [ex. comics] in its various forms to free themselves from the bounds of fact" (Young 2012). Thus, as a short film, it also serves as a tool to explore the ability to use the creators' voices and talents to create change. "People were excited about RiRi because she opened up the spectrum of imagination—for people in and outside of the demographic of black women ... It makes you think, I can imagine a black, female, mechanical engineer—because I've seen one. It allows people of that demographic to imagine themselves that way, too" (Gano 2017). Fantasy may become reality if Black girls have appropriate role models.

While RiRi has had a fairly consistent showing in the comic book medium, which indicates her popularity among Marvel followers, her story has recently been translated into several other media. In 2018, RiRi starred in her own animated television special *Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron* (voiced by Sofia Wylie), where she teams up with the "Secret Warriors" to disarm a doomsday device and save her city. *Marvel Rising: Heart of Iron* serves as one of the three characters of color to a *Marvel Rising* special (the other characters are Shuri and America Chavez/Miss America). RiRi/Ironheart also expands her reach appearing as a playable character in several video games (*Marvel Puzzle Quest*, *Marvel Future Fight*, *Marvel Avengers Academy*, *Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2*, and *Marvel Strike Force*). And before making

her series debut on Disney+ (Ironheart, fall 2023), we have seen her show off her skills in live action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film, *Black Panther: Wakanda Forever* (2022). All of these media appearances are important because her character is establishing a future legacy and becomes a part of laying the groundwork for the next chapter and phase in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe. Riri's comic book popularity is not only validated but also extended through these transmedia adaptations.

In light of the long history of Black girls being victims of erasure in fiction and reality, Riri's multiple appearances across the pop culture landscape, her apparent rise in popularity, and her attachment to STEM are noteworthy and important to acknowledge. With little representation of Black girls in the Marvel Universe, as well as in the larger comic book universe, Riri further confirms that not only does *representation matter* but it is necessary. Seeing superhero stories like RiRi as Ironheart disrupts the established narrative that Black characters lack nuance or must appear as tokenized characters. As noted by one comic book fan, "It's super dope to see these two young black girls (Lunella Lafayette and RiRi Williams) out here dominating and becoming the future of a field where middle-aged white men have been the standard" (More Street Art 2017). Additionally, seeing a Black girl have a presence in multiple popular media lets fans and consumers know that they are worthy of being seen, which can also translate into reality and future possibilities. Ewing speaks to this notion of being seen: "I feel like for years a lot of black kids in fantasy culture have had to compromise, so it was important to show them they can be the hero" (Murphy 2019). The inclusion of her character, especially in the Marvel Universe, adds to the growing popularity and legacy of younger heroes like Kamala Khan, Miles Morales, and Sam Alexander.

#### **4. DC Comics, "Naomi" Port Oswego's Environmental/Geo-Engineer**

The year 2022 was a busy one for comic book representations on television, ranging from Marvel's *Moon Knight*, *Ms. Marvel*, and *She*-Hulk to Image Comics' *Paper Girls* and *Tales of the Walking Dead*, to Vertigo's *The Sandman* and *DMZ*. From the DC Universe, we saw #BlackGirlMagic play out in the superhero drama series *Naomi*. Created by Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated director Ava DuVernay and television writer Jill Blankenship, *Naomi* is based on the 2019 comic book of the same name co-written by Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker and illustrated by Jamal Campbell. Premiering in January 2022 on The CW, *Naomi* is a coming-of-age drama that follows a Black teen girl's journey (played by Kaci Walfall13) after a supernatural event from a small Pacific northwestern town to a massive multiverse.

#### *4.1. Who Am I?*

The *Naomi* series is one that I would describe as self-exploratory. From the opening of episode #1, "Don't Believe Everything You Think," we are looking through the literal lens of Naomi's glasses as she is preparing to attend a friend's house party. This is an episode that can be likened to an origin story and one that sets the tone for the entire season. Upon first glance, we see a fusion of Naomi's style and personality as a skater girl, a military brat, and a huge Superman fan who caters her style to an amalgamation of 1990s fashion (Poetic Justice braids, baggy overall jeans, Nike Air Force Ones). We also learn that she is adopted (by a mother of color and a white father), which speaks to the importance that not all Black girls have the same experience and family dynamics. Moreover, the fact that her parents are not Black could be seen as a strategic mainstreaming move to make her character more palatable to white audiences. As part of this episode, viewers also get to see how the creators offer a freedom narrative where Naomi is open about whom she chooses to like and flirt with, whether it is her comic book buddy Lourdes or two male friends Nathan and Anthony. According to co-creator Ava DuVernay, the show overall is an example of normalizing the types of stories they want to see in the world. She explains: "We show a different hero, a black girl, and we're making it normal and that's radical/revolutionary" (Bennett 2022). An immediate engagement with Naomi's sexuality

is extremely noticeable and refreshing and a nod to this current generation's attitude toward the fluidity of sexuality. Showrunner Jill Blankenship shared that they looked to this generation to influence the tone and approach to telling Naomi's story (Bennett 2022). For Naomi is constantly trying to uncover the truth about who she is while simultaneously navigating her newfound identity as a superhero and accepting it as something positive and empowering. But just like any other teenager, she constantly desires to be normal and to fit in. This can be complicated even in reality, when Black girls are seen as threats, problematic, or someone who needs to be tamed.

#### *4.2. F.I.A.R. (Face the Fear, Identify, Acknowledge, Release)*

Another common theme that frequently occurs in the series is Naomi's management of self-care. Not only is she committed, but her parents and mentors play a role in making sure it is a priority. In one of their many conversations, Naomi's mentor Dee wants to make sure she moves away from striving to be "normal." As part of this self-reflection, in episode #3, "Zero to Sixty", Dee offers a series of thoughts and questions about "who determines normalcy?" Having powers, she suggests, does not mean you're ready to use them as a threat, the power of words, and embracing change. Over the course of the series, Naomi will incorporate a mantra, *F.I.A.R. (Face the Fear, Identify, Acknowledge, Release)* to help with personal relationships with friends and family, navigating school and preparing for college, and the way she deals with accepting her additional identity as a superhero. The mentorship and guidance given to Naomi can be seen as a luxury since not every young girl is afforded this opportunity. For Black girls, mentorship becomes vital to avoid being thrust into the criminal justice system at an early age (Brown 2013; Morris 2016). Channeling an Afrofuturist spirit, ultimately, Black girls need space to simply exist not just in the present, but the hopeful future.

#### *4.3. Who Gets to Save the World* ... *A Black Teen Girl*

What is also important to note, much like the significance of Eve L. Ewing writing the *Ironheart* series, is that the majority of the directors for each episode are Black (a total of 8 out 13, with 4 being Black women [DeMane Davis, Neema Barnette, Angel Kristi Williams, Merawi Gerima]). With film and television having very little minority representation among top management and boards, and a need to advance racial and gender equity, concerted action and the joint commitment of stakeholders across the industry ecosystem is essential (Dunn et al. 2021). The "Naomi" script with its diverse casting of characters and directors speaks to the efforts of rendering Black girls visible and redefining who gets to save the world. These efforts also channel the work of Black feminists as they work towards giving agency to Black women's experiences, changing societal systems, and dismantling racial and gender inequities. In essence, Naomi serves as a radical act of transformation that DuVernay explains moves beyond representation: "[I]t's not about representation, it's about normalization ... The more you can portray images without underlining or highlighting them and putting a star next to them. By showing a different type of hero that centers a girl, a Black girl, that centers different kinds of folks. We start to make that normal and that's a radical and revolutionary thing" (Steiner 2022).

Unfortunately, Naomi's story is cut short, and the series was canceled after only one season due to a struggling viewership and the recent Discovery and Warner Bros. merger (Oddo 2022). Along with premiering in the midst of a merger, *Naomi* also fell victim to not being marketed properly, with commercial considerations potentially overriding the wish for more and better representation. Instead of pushing stories like Naomi's that feature forward-thinking visuals of Black girlhood to the margins (Hooks 2014), producers need to be enticed to create more narratives that speak to various lived experiences. While the cancellation of the show can be seen as a failure, the existence of her character has left a mark that can live on beyond the show. As proclaimed by *Book Riot* journalist Aurora Lydia Dominguez, Naomi's character "represents a powerful Black teenage superhero, one that young Black girls can look up to and feel represented by" (Dominguez 2022). She goes on to argue: "it's not just about this female superhero having unique superpowers, it's about what this symbolizes: that diverse women can truly fulfill their destiny, find strength within themselves, and showcase their strengths in front of their male counterparts" (Dominguez 2022). Others have also noted that Naomi's story and the series can be likened to this notion of a Black Girl transforming the superhero space. The series is representative "of those historically marginalized by major superhero stories; *Naomi* is for the people who are usually excluded from representation of this kind but know they're badass enough to be the stars of their own universe" (Andrea 2022). Thus, with this quick cancellation, we are left to wonder about the potential popularity and what might have been further developed in Naomi's television comic book narrative.

#### **5. Adventures of a Pre-Teen Explorer in** *Boom! Studios' Eve*

When thinking about the representation of Black girls in comics and popular culture, I want to make sure to include experiences before adolescence. In my research, most of the characters that are explored vary from teenagers to young adults. Thus, I feel that it is necessary to include BOOM! Studios' *Eve*, which offers an under-researched perspective into Black girl middle childhood. Debuting in May 2021, *Eve* is an original five-issue series by award-winning author Victor LaValle and rising artist Jo Mi-Gyeong. It tells the story of an 11-year-old Black girl named Eve, who embarks on "a dangerous journey across a future dystopian America to save the world." As a departure from the larger two comic book publishing companies, the character of Eve in many ways creates her own path because she does not have to come from behind the shadows of existing, long-standing characters. Her series is another example of the future possibilities of Black girls as main protagonists not just in comic books but within genres like science-fiction, fantasy, or magical realism, where they are still not featured or seen as much.

"*What kind of planet are we leaving to our kids?*," LaValle asks at the end of *Eve* issue #1. This is a poignant question that also serves as a motivation for the creation of this comic book and one that he is constantly wrestling with through his own personal life and work. Through this question, LaValle explains the importance and necessity of telling a story like Eve's:

"Many generations have wrestled with it, but the question has never been as immediate ... But I didn't want to write some grim story about how this joint went to hell. Instead, I wanted to write a story about how we let the planet fall apart and left it to younger generations to fix it. So, this is a story, inspired by young folks like Mari Copeny, Else Mengistu, Greta Thunberg and so many more, of how an eleven-year old girl, Eve, and her android teddy bear try to do the seemingly impossible: save the planet, save us." (Broken Frontier Staff 2021)

Here, LaValle addresses a societal need for change and how a younger generation is stepping up to the task to get the job done. Taking it a step further, LaValle is giving this responsibility and power to an eleven-year-old Black girl. But what does it mean to write a story about a young Black girl, like Eve, who holds so much responsibility?

Picture this, a young precocious Black girl navigating a dense mangrove tree landscape maze filled with wooden bridges and crabs climbing the branches. With a walkie-talkie in her hand, this eleven-year-old named Eve is embarking on a utopian journey where she is the lead explorer. As she leaps from tree to tree, talking to herself, a voice comes through the walkie-talkie: "*[Y]ou finished with the perimeter sweep?*," asks her father. She then races back home to her father to have dinner, recap from her adventure, and discuss plans for the future. What follows their conversation is a walk to a mysterious doorway and a shocking revelation for Eve. Before opening the door, Eve's father shares with her, "*you've made this place feel like a home. It won't be the same without you.*" To which Eve replies, "*Daddy I don't understand* ... *you're scaring me*." In this moment, Eve realizes her playful adventures were actually training sessions, as her father was preparing her for journey of self-discovery and survival. In his last words to his daughter, he is essentially passing the torch for her to jump into an unknown reality: "*[Y]ou have to open this yourself, little one. I can't do it for* *you*" (LaValle 2021a, *Eve* #1). This opening begins Eve's mission to get back to her father and save the world. At a young age, Eve is given tremendous responsibility, designed for a superhero even though she is not one. In the first issue, we see how Eve handles her new reality guided by an android teddy bear named Wexler, programmed by her father. Readers early on see her fears, frustrations, and how she struggles with the destruction that has taken over her Jackson Square community. In spite of the dystopian reality and her imperfections, Eve is still motivated to take on the mission as a way to possibly reconnect with her father.

Eve's story is not only about self-discovery but an example of how children operate through life when faced with ongoing obstacles. Even at a young age, Eve understands that she has to be her own champion. Very early on we see how Eve is very transparent with her emotions. In one panel, we see her looking up toward the sky talking to her mother, who has passed away, assuring her that she is ok. "*Are you there Mom? It's Me. Eve* ... *You're probably worried about me, but I know how to pilot that craft below*" (LaValle 2021b, *Eve* #2). In this moment, Eve is confident in her ability to navigate this part of her mission. And even though Eve's mother is not alive to physically protect her, Eve still offers this reassurance. This is also an example of how kids operate without fear, while adults typically operate in protection mode. In this same issue, we also see Eve's burgeoning curiosity. As she continues to escape what's left of New York City, accompanied by her companion Wexler, Eve encounters a team of mutant stalkers. Staying one step ahead of them, Eve begins wondering how they came to be mutants. Communicating through a crown helmet, Eve asks Wexler, "*How did it work? Did people get sick one day and turn into* ... *those things?*" To which he explains that they were consumed by a virus. This response leads to a further inquiry from Eve: "*[S]o we're making this trip because the danger hasn't passed right? The virus remains active?*" (LaValle 2021b, *Eve* #2). Eve does not want simple answers; she would rather be told the hard truth versus be pacified. As noted by the author in the issue's closing notes, a lesson he learned while attending a writing conference was that when writing YA stories like Eve's that tackle tough problems, "don't write for adults, write for the reading audience" (LaValle 2021c, *Eve* #3). In essence, be honest, and truthful, and trust that kids know the world can be a vicious place. Thus, through Eve's confidence and curiosity, the above-noted examples serve as teachable moments in which we see how one should not underestimate how much children are able to handle.

Operating through an Afrofuturistic lens, the *Eve* series engages with technology, speculative, and reclamation. Eve uses VR and AI tools left by her father; she runs from supernatural beings and uses her imagination to create a future new normal. This latter sentiment is something of which she constantly reminds herself: "*Instead of thinking about what went wrong in the past, I want you to imagine how you can do some good during what comes next*" (LaValle 2021d, *Eve* #5). Eve's bravery, much like RiRi's and Naomi's, is a reminder that when given an opportunity to be heard and seen, Black girls' stories have the possibility to change the media landscape and the way they are perceived in society. In the end, despite the spreading of the virus, Eve is successful in her pursuit to save the world even when others have lost hope. For Eve, "we found love in a hopeless place" (LaValle 2021d, *Eve* #5). themes like fear, parent loss, climate crisis, references to COVID-19, and survival, *Eve* offers the possibility that even in reality the world can still be saved. This possibility is revisited as Eve's story continues with Wexler and her sister in the latest series *Eve: Children of the Moon* (debuting in October 2022).

#### **6. The Rising Possibilities**

As the comic book landscape continues to expand and grow, diversity still remains a heavily discussed topic. As noted by comic book creator C. Spike Trotman, "diversity of every sort—racial diversity, gender diversity, acknowledging minority sexualities—is experiencing an explosion of recognition and representation in comics" (Hudson 2015). This is especially significant in the case of the Marvel and DC publishing companies adding teen characters to their roster. The past 10 years have seen a steady increase in the number

of young characters of color entering the comic book landscape as main/central characters, whether via comic books, television, and/or film formats (see Table 1). This increase in young characters of color, particularly in works by Marvel and DC, is significant and noteworthy considering how a character builds popularity if they are included. Furthermore, including characters like the ones mentioned above, especially for young readers who match their identities, is relatable and can be viewed as inspirational and aspirational.


**Table 1.** Mainstream New Class of Young Characters of Color.

Diversity and inclusion, especially in younger characters, also open doors for new genres or genres that have been ignored but are getting more attention in comic books. These characters, as well as the ones explored in the article, offer a relatability that is not primarily relegated to hetero-white men. More diverse characters can also enable stories that engage with different walks of life. For example, Ms. Marvel's (Kamala Khan) story (both in her Disney series and the comic book) taps into the role of religion and faith through the lens of social justice. She's a Muslim and a Pakistani-American teen living in New Jersey who goes to parties, deals with disappointments and heartaches, has crushes and insecurities. Ms. Marvel highlights a story that is universal while also being specific. Considering the one-dimensional narratives often associated with Muslim people, including terrorism and orientalist tropes, it is crucial to re-condition and provides a more relatable and empowering reflection. Another prominent character is Static Shock (Virgil Hawkins) of Milestone Media. While he has one of the earlier appearances in comics and television, pre-dating Miles Morales by many years, Static Shock offers a perspective from a Black teen boy who is a highly gifted student with interests in science-fiction, technology, comic books, and role-playing games. As an animated television series that premiered in 2000, *Static Shock* was unapologetically political and engaged with a variety of heavy topics, such as homelessness, mental health, racism, gangs, and gun violence. Compared to other kid and superhero shows of that time, *Static Shock*'s cultural and political commentary was integral to the show's DNA (Dominguez 2020). All in all, just because these characters are young does not mean they are oblivious to what is happening in the world around them. If anything, their stories as well as others offer a beacon of hope of what is to come in the future.

Not only do we see the rising possibilities of young characters of color in the Marvel and DC universes, but we are also seeing an influence on a global scale, particularly in Africa. While there have been locally produced African superhero comics from Africans

since 1980s, this popularity increased in 2016 due to the rise of Marvel Studios superhero films (Wangari 2022). Embracing an Afrofuturist framework and an exploration of diasporic Blackness and girlhood, an example of this impact can be seen in the newest Netflix series *Mama K's Team 4*. As an original and the first animated series from Africa, *Mama K's Team 4* follows four teenage girls who live in a futuristic Lusaka, Zambia, and are recruited by a retired secret agent to save the world. Inspired by creator and Zambian writer Malenga Mulendema to change the way cartoons have been portrayed in her home country, Mulendema wanted to see herself in a medium that often left her out. She aimed at "creating a superhero show set in Lusaka, I hope to introduce the world to four strong African girls who save the day in their own fun and crazy way ... and most importantly, I want to illustrate that anyone from anywhere can be a superhero" (Vourlias 2019).

In addition to the debut of Netflix's *Mama K's Team 4*, Africa has also contributed more specifically to the comic book and graphic novel genre with the work of Marguerite Abouet. Her *Aya* series depicts the normal life of residents of the Ivory Coast as seen through the eyes of a Black/African teen girl named Aya. Abouet's depiction of daily African life disrupts the western viewpoint, which primarily focuses on famine, civil war, and unhinged wilderness. As an award-winning comic book/graphic novelist, Abouet, as a writer, is very intentional with her characters' portrayals, highlighting them going to school and work, having fun with family and friends, and planning for their futures. The *Aya* series also gained global popularity as it has been translated into 15 languages and turned into an animated film ("Aya of Yop City") distributed internationally by the *Institut Français*, and it also received the 2018 Prix des jeunes cinéphiles francophones (Prize for Young French-Speaking Film Enthusiats). All in all, both African creators, much like their U.S. counterparts, are contributing to the global popularity by telling stories that invite their African readership into the genre while simultaneously yearning for more diversity, representation, and authenticity in their stories.

When we consider comics as a quantitative phenomenon, we can note that comic book sales reached USD 2.075 billion (the largest in the industry) in 2021, with 13–29 year-olds buying 57% of all comics (Clark 2022; Georgiev 2022). Comic books continue to be a thriving business with collectors and fans still making the financial investment. A part of this success is attributed to a few factors: rediscovering hobbies during the COVID-19 pandemic, increased popularity in certain genres, and streaming services like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+ featuring new shows and movies (Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Comics). Consumers are obviously seeking out the source material. Additionally, children's comics and graphic novels have become increasingly popular because parents are seeing them as a "gateway into reading" (Clark 2022). While some fans and consumers may view RiRi, Naomi, Eve, and other diverse stories as manufactured diversity (Cain 2017),14 their narratives explore why their inclusion and range are necessary while also serving as a turning point in American visibility. With each month, these stories and others are becoming more commonplace and accessible to consumers. According to one retailer, increased diversity has brought a new clientele to his store, as the diverse comics "do bring in a different demographic, and I'm happy to see that money in my store" (Griepp 2017). Furthermore, with the existence of movies and series/shows like Disney's *Ms. Marvel* and *Marvel Rising: Operation Shuri* (voiced by Daisy Lightfoot), The CW's *Black Lightning*, and the upcoming Disney Channel animated series *Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur* (voiced by Diamond White) to complement the digital and physical comic books, Black girls are continuing to make space, imagine alternative futures, and exemplify that being a Black girl is something to be proud of.

Girlhood, in particular Black girlhood, in comics is expanding beyond just the comic book page and steadily branching into more media (mainstream and independent). While the increase in mainstream recognition is not always massive, although steady, there is a popularity of Black female character storylines in the independent space, which contributes to their overall representation. For many, success and popularity are not solely based on the validation of dominant publishers. As noted by veteran comic book editor Joe Illidge, "I don't think the goal should be to try and break into DC and Marvel ... I think the goal is we have to build our own houses and then in time be as big as DC and Marvel" (Lynn 2018). This is important to recognize as it can help to reconsider and redefine what is deemed popular and to whom. Even in spite of cancellations, the opportunity for a show to exist, or a comic book series to hit bookshelves, is an accomplishment on its own, especially when considering the lack of exposure in the past.

#### **7. What These Black Girl Superheroes Taught Me**

*So, what did these Black girl superheroes teach me?* These characters as well as others provide a change in my thinking. I am becoming less surprised when I see them in a comic book, leading a television series, or making a stand-out performance in a Hollywood blockbuster film; instead, I am more encouraged. Revisiting RiRi, Eve, and Naomi's stories transports me back to my own childhood while giving me the confidence to declare that Black girls are the future, whether locally, nationally, or even globally. Comics are widely accessible, e.g., online sites such as *Comixology* (https://support.comixology.com/hc/en-us, accessed on 14 March 2023), *Comic Book Plus* (https://comicbookplus.com/, accessed on 14 March 2023), *DriveThru Comics* (https://www.drivethrucomics.com/, accessed on 14 March 2023), *Digital Comic Museum* (https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/, accessed on 14 March 2023), and *Libby* (https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby, accessed on 14 March 2023) or in local libraries. They are being taught in K-12 and collegiate classes, and their characters are featured in television and film. Having such a wide-ranging impact, comics offer Black girls and teens the opportunity to not only imagine who they could be but also act on it. As the comic book superhero narrative gradually includes younger voices, especially Black girls, we as scholars and fans can consider the ways in which their stories can be utilized as a valuable tool not only to teach but also to facilitate critical conversations around popularity, power, race, class, gender, privilege (Dallacqua and Low 2019) and their relationship with popular culture. These stories make statements and serve a purpose in which their popularity is within a particular space. For example, PBS Media founder and engineer Naseed Gifted notes that he creates and uses comics with Black stories "to get students interested in STEM" (Lynn 2018). Here, the comic book becomes a vehicle to reach audiences of fans and introduce them to others. While characters like RiRi, Eve, and Naomi exist in a fictional comic book and television show landscape, their narratives resonate with an array of Black girl realities. I can even remember as an eight-year-old Black girl reading the latest *X-Men* series, watching *Transformers* and *Scooby-Doo* as part of my Saturday cartoons routine, and anxiously awaiting getting my copy of the Sunday Funny Papers. During each of the 30 min syndicated programs, I would escape my reality and transport myself into a colorful fantasy. Now what would have made this an almost utopian experience would have been the opportunity to see more characters that looked like me or shared my reality. As more stories of Black girls like RiRi, Naomi, and Eve are created and presented in multiple formats, in comics, popular culture more broadly, and the academy, their presence becomes a game-changer and works toward filling the gaps in existing genres and narratives.

Each of their narratives provides new representations, new voices, and redefinitions of Black girlhood, creating new worlds while "dismantling problematic and artificial boundaries obstructing Black liberation" (Moore 2017). It is crucial to have a wide range of images and possibilities for Black girls so that as they grow up their imaginations do not have to be stifled or diminished based on preconceived notions. Their narratives, whether in the comic book or television format, also create discourses on the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc., and on how those identities navigate "living in a racialized society" (Kirkpatrick and Scott 2015, p. 120). Especially in the portrayal of the classroom space, regardless of age, all three girls manage to find ways to define themselves for themselves. It was necessary to analyze more than one Black girl experience across a range of ages so as not to limit the Black girl voice to a single iteration. RiRi, Naomi, and Eve are inventive examples of adventure-seekers, innovators, and freedom fighters

who encourage Black girl empowerment. They challenge oppression, push back against the labels placed on Black girls, refuse restrictions, and make meaning of their identities. Ultimately, RiRi, Naomi, and Eve are not only trying to save their communities and the world. They are also contributing to revising the future Black girl script, in and outside of popular culture. The greater the access and representation are, the more opportunities arise to make space for other Black girls and teens to imagine the possibilities of seeing themselves in a world where they are not normally seen or represented.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**


#### **References**


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### *Article* **Pop/Poetry:** *Dickinson* **as Remix**

**Julia Leyda 1,\* and Maria Sulimma <sup>2</sup>**


**Abstract:** In its meticulous, freewheeling adaptation of the life and work of celebrated poet Emily Dickinson, the television series *Dickinson* (Apple TV+, 2019–2021) manifests a twenty-first-century disruption of high and low culture afforded by digital media, including streaming video and music platforms. This article argues that the fanciful series models a mixed-media, multimodal aesthetic form that invites a diverse range of viewers to find pleasure in Dickinson's poetry itself and in the foibles of its author, regardless of their familiarity with the literary or cultural histories of the US American 19th century. *Dickinson* showcases creator Alena Smith's well-researched knowledge of the poet and her work, while simultaneously mocking popular (mis)conceptions about her life and that of other literary figures such as Walt Whitman and Sylvia Plath, all set to a contemporary soundtrack. This analysis of *Dickinson* proposes to bring into conversation shifting boundaries of high and low culture across generations and engage with critical debates about the utility of the popular (and of studies of the popular) in literary and cultural studies in particular.

**Keywords:** television; poetry; multimodality; intertextuality; popular culture; high/low divide; gender; anachronism

#### **1. Introduction**

In the episode "There's a Certain Slant of Light" of the television series *Dickinson* (AppleTV+, 2019–2021), it is Christmas morning, 1854, in Amherst, Massachusetts, and a cheerful young Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) steps up to host her family's Christmas dinner party after her mother suffers an emotional breakdown. When her neighbors bring an unannounced guest, the writer Louisa May Alcott (Zosia Mamet), aspiring poet Emily bonds with her immediately and, typical for this show's glee in anachronism, the two women go for a run together as they discuss the 19th-century publishing industry, female authorship, and reader expectations. Mamet brings to the role of Alcott, the author of *Little Women* (1868), the same fast-talking, frantic, and pragmatic qualities that she perfected playing the New Yorker Shoshanna on *Girls* (HBO, 2012–2017). Young Emily is portrayed by Steinfeld, known for the role of Mattie Ross in the cult Western *True Grit* (2010, dir. Ethan and Joel Coen). Across its three seasons, the television series *Dickinson*, produced for AppleTV+, features carefully cast cameos of literary luminaries, historical figures, and activists whom Emily either meets in person or encounters in dreams, fantasy sequences, or time travels, including Henry David Thoreau (John Mulaney), Edgar Allan Poe (Nick Kroll), Frederick Law Olmstead (Timothy Simons), Sojourner Truth (Ziwe Fumudoh), Walt Whitman (Billy Eichner), and Sylvia Plath (Chloe Fineman).

The encounter between these two literary New Englanders is entirely fictional—they moved in the same social circles, but there is no evidence that they ever met. Nevertheless, *Dickinson* credibly establishes their different orientations toward their writing (Alcott's commercial motivation and Dickinson's striving toward aesthetic perfection) as well as their shared experience of gendered discrimination as women writers. During their run,

**Citation:** Leyda, Julia, and Maria Sulimma. 2023. Pop/Poetry: *Dickinson* as Remix. *Arts* 12: 62. https://doi.org/10.3390/ arts12020062

Academic Editors: Daniel Stein and Niels Werber

Received: 10 February 2023 Revised: 16 March 2023 Accepted: 17 March 2023 Published: 22 March 2023 Corrected: 30 October 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

they refer to their contemporary Nathaniel Hawthorne's notorious letter to William Ticknor in 1855—a year after Alcott published her first book *Flower Fables*—in which he opines, "America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash—and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed" (Woodson 1987, p. 304). This comment presents popularity as a threat because it legitimates otherwise marginalized and illegitimate voices. It anticipates the perennial distinction between highbrow and lowbrow culture that links popularity and purported aesthetic deficiency—parallels that are gendered, racialized, and classed. Hawthorne distinguishes between "the trash" of mass-market production and his own literary endeavors. Through his reliance upon a gendered rhetoric of commodification, Hawthorne casts popular works of successful female authors as aesthetically inferior commodities, products of a newly emerging consumer-led, feminized culture. Mamet's Alcott quickly dismisses such sexist and elitist arrogance; she quips to Emily: "Hawthorne can eat a dick, am I right?" In this scene, the series not only explicitly raises the gendered ideologies about art and commerce at the heart of highbrow/lowbrow distinctions, but it also produces comic delight by puncturing those distinctions in an anachronistic frank conversation between two young women writers in the mid-19th century using 21st-century slang to decry overt sexism. In this article, rather than merely reinforce binary distinctions between high and low culture for analytic purposes, we argue that the series itself foregrounds and complicates the way that high and low culture binaries are constructed and thus subject to change across historical periods.

As this outburst of contemporary profanity demonstrates, *Dickinson* playfully interjects current sensibilities around gender and other power relationships into its 19th-century storyworld. Code-switching between the lexicon of today's trash-talking youth and mixedmedia excerpts from Dickinson's poems, interleaving hip hop music with period costumes, the series manifests the disruption of high and low culture afforded by digital media, including social media and streaming video and music platforms. The show combines poetry and popular culture as well as highbrow canonical literature and lowbrow teen television. As such, it exemplifies the critical dissolutions of high/low distinctions that this Special Issue spotlights. *Dickinson* rejects traditional literary expectations of how a female author's life should be portrayed. Instead, the show presents a kind of remix to its viewers, often for comic effect that, in its jarring dissonance, challenges the reverence often reserved for esteemed cultural figures.

In its casting, too, the series makes the most of its actors' star images such that, for example, Jane Krakowski as Emily's goofy, unpredictable mother embodies an intertextual link to the famous (and quite similar) characters Krakowski brought to the screen in shows such as *30 Rock* (2006–2013) and *Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt* (2015–2020). Like Mamet's and Krakowski's intertextual casting, Billy Eichner as Walt Whitman is still clearly Billy Eichner, the fast-talking gay New Yorker of *Billy on the Street* (2011–2017) and *Difficult People* (2015– 2017). Casting recognizable actors who import many traits from their more contemporary roles into the 19th-century milieu of *Dickinson* contributes to the remix sensibility of the series, which draws on not only viewers' (perhaps sketchy) cultural knowledge about the life and work of Emily Dickinson, but also on their likely more extensive familiarity with contemporary pop culture such as television and music.

We draw on the notion of multimodal aesthetics as a way to analyze cultural artifacts that span different types of media, in order to highlight similarities and specificities of different media modes. In her work on poetry interpretation in digital environments and on social media, Hessa Alghadeer (2014) demonstrates how multimodality complicates and enhances diverse processes of meaning-making (87–96), and we find that such multimodal interpretative and communicative practices are actively evoked through *Dickinson*. The terms multimodality and remix are not interchangeable but are intimately related to one another as well as to practices of intermediality, a term used to describe the relationships among different media. While each of these terms has been the subject of extensive debates in media studies and narratology, for our purposes, we employ the term remixing. However, we agree with Mary Simonson's conclusion that "intermediality is most potently generated in performances that challenge—and at times confound—the audience's expectations and understandings of media" (Simonson 2021, p. 27). Related to this is our understanding of remixing as an active storytelling practice that draws on different cultural archives. Contemporary practices of remixing are ambiguous: "sometimes respectful of the past, sometimes insulting, sometimes uncaring, [their ambivalence] needs to be taken into consideration as participatory and access-oriented archival projects proliferate" (Waysdorf 2021, p. 1142). Arguing that remix is ubiquitous in contemporary media but also that remix culture has changed considerably over the years, Abby Waysdorf advocates for that we should "move beyond debates around the legitimacy of remix and instead focus on the contemporary state of remix as a concept" (1130). Remixing Emily Dickinson's poetry, biography, and literary and cultural 19th-century context with contemporary popular culture, youth culture, and Internet culture, *Dickinson*'s intermedial remixing occurs through modes of dissonance and anachronism.

This article argues that the fanciful series models a multimodal aesthetic form that invites a diverse range of viewers to find pleasure in Dickinson's poetry itself and in the foibles of its author, regardless of their familiarity with the literary or cultural histories of the US American 19th century. Each episode loosely adapts one or more of her poems but also serializes them by visually and thematically providing continuity and making them a part of a season's larger concerns. The first season has Emily grapple with her calling as a poet seeking to claim ownership over her poetry. The second season leads her to question whether she should publish her work, what impact it may have in the future, and if she should crave recognition or even celebrity. Finally, the third season portrays the Civil War and Emily's ongoing queer love for Sue (who is married to her brother), both of which inspire her artistic interrogation of the role of art in a brutal environment. *Dickinson* showcases showrunner Alena Smith's—and her writer's room's well-researched knowledge of the poet and her work, while simultaneously mocking popular (mis)conceptions about Emily Dickinson's life and that of other literary figures such as Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, and Sylvia Plath, all set to a contemporary soundtrack.

A popular television series about a poet who struggles with the significance of popularity that draws on popular culture, *Dickinson* was well-received among television critics and academics. The series tends to lead "best of Apple" lists—for example, by *Paste Magazine*, *Esquire*, and *Screenrant*—and was frequently discussed on Twitter and other social media platforms. As such, the series complicates the understanding of quantitative and qualitative popularity that this Special Issue is interested in. *Screenrant*'s David Mello finds that through *Dickinson* and the sports-comedy *Ted Lasso* (2020–), "Apple TV+ has established a reputation for itself as a streaming service that prioritizes quality over quantity. The two series most emblematic of that motto [ ... have] amassed sizable audiences and fervent fan followings, while also managing to be entirely different in terms of form, tone, and story" (Mello 2021). On Twitter, *Vulture*'s Kathryn VanArendonk jokes about the show's cachet with younger viewers: "My favorite imagined scene of the last few weeks is a bunch of execs at apple tv+ huddling over the data and conversation around *Dickinson* and wondering what the hell lessons they are supposed to learn from its success ... . 'Is it girls having orgasms? Is it Wiz Khalifa?'"1 One comment that *Vanity Fair*'s Laura Bradley picks up is: "Perhaps the best thing about *Dickinson*—and the thing that made it a success in the first place—is that it's so abjectly weird that anyone would be hard-pressed to replicate it" (Bradley 2019).

Within the context of television, such highlighting of "quality" recalls the similar slogan that another television newcomer had employed to distance itself and its productions from the "usual", mass-oriented fare of television. Between 1996 and 2009, HBO branded its uniqueness and exceptionality through a paradoxical refusal of the medium itself: "It's not TV. It's HBO". HBO sought to set itself apart from television as a "guilty pleasure" and did so in ways that were distinctly gendered, as Elana Levine and Michael Newman have demonstrated (Newman and Levine 2011). The distinction between prestigious "quality TV" and mainstream TV's mass appeal distanced HBO's brand from the female-associated lowbrow pleasures of television storytelling and, instead, aligned it with modernist, maleassociated art forms. Yet today's serial television landscape is almost unrecognizably altered from those early days of "quality TV" (Lagerwey et al. 2016; Sulimma 2021).

We argue that *Dickinson* invalidates such distinctions, despite critics' continued reference to them. Not only is "quality TV" no longer a male-dominated category, with contenders such as *Homeland* (Showtime, 2011–2020), *The Handmaid's Tale* (Hulu, 2017–), *Orange Is the New Black* (Netflix, 2013–2019), *Euphoria* (HBO, 2019–), and *The Crown* (Netflix, 2016–) gaining critical recognition over the past two decades, but, as *Dickinson* demonstrates in its thematics and its form, "quality" is also not inherent in genre or mode. A conventional historical television series might be concerned with period details and accuracy, as in *The Crown*, or it might instead seek to instantiate another kind of truth about a historical figure while rewriting familiar yet unverifiable cultural narratives associated with her, as does *Dickinson*. Examining how the show's deep dive into the renowned poet's oeuvre and milieu is strengthened by its deployment of 21st–century youth and Internet culture's attitudes, language, and music, this analysis of *Dickinson* brings into conversation shifting boundaries of high and low culture across generations. We argue that *Dickinson* achieves its comic and critical success through literary cameos by well-known and widely recognizable actors, critical anachronism, echoes of social media tropes and memes, and frequent affirmations of queer and feminist politics.<sup>2</sup> Our article seeks to explore some of the narrative and aesthetic strategies the series employs through its remixing of Emily Dickinson's life, poetry, and milieu with the archives of contemporary Internet culture and popular culture. This remixing thrives on dissonance and anachronism, as we will demonstrate in two different sections, with readings of individual episodes in which Emily encounters famous literary contemporaries such as Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, and Sylvia Plath. The following sections demonstrate the extent of the show's remixing, which encompasses visuality, musical choices, characterization, and diction.

#### **2. Anachronistic Stories about Emily**

Whereas "presentism" may serve as a death sentence for period pieces and academic writing alike, *Dickinson* demonstrates no hesitation in appropriating historical materials and personalities for storytelling purposes. Rachel Vorona Cote (2021), Stephanie Russo (2021), and Shirley Li (2021), respectively, argue that *Dickinson* is part of a trend of intentionally anachronistic period pieces, which also includes films such as *A Knight's* Tale (2001, dir. Brian Helgeland) and *Marie* Antoinette (2016, dir. Sofia Coppola), or television shows such as *The Great* (Hulu, 2020–) and *Bridgerton* (Netflix, 2020–). Cote aptly describes these artifacts as a subgenre she calls "feminist anachronistic costume drama", which seeks to "exploit the artificiality of any history we attempt to reconstruct and envision alternate realities in which the women we're focused on are granted more agency than is strictly accurate [ ... in order to] illuminate the lives of historical women and the patriarchal pressures to which they were subjected" (Cote 2021, p. 148; see also Russo 2021).

Cote's observation plays out clearly in *Dickinson*'s characteristic anachronistic mashups, such as in episode 2.1, "Before I Got My Eye Put Out", which depicts a soiree where the crowd twerks to the song "Pink Hat" (2019) by electronic music duo Sofi Tukker. However, Li points out that, unlike other films and series, the anachronism of *Dickinson* delivers much more than a "gimmicky take on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson". Instead, the show confronts viewers with the paradox of the poet's historical persona: that "a woman who so vividly captured the spectrum of human emotion with her words came to be known only as a depressed shut-in". Other recent imaginings of Emily Dickinson have already pushed back against some of these myths; the romantic comedy film *Wild Nights with Emily* (2018, dir. Madeleine Olnek) lays the groundwork for the series with its humorous take on the poet, the depiction of Emily's romantic relationship with Sue, and the use of special effects to inscribe calligraphy of her poems on the screen.

*Dickinson* depicts glowing, golden handwritten lines of poetry superimposed over the images onscreen in crucial moments, which create an interesting tension between poem, accompanying music, and visuals, as will be discussed in the next section. The unfurling lines are read in voiceover by Emily or other characters with whom she has shared her work, remaining visible only briefly, denoting the ephemerality of the written word (Figure 1). In practical terms, such a combination of animated calligraphy and voiceover aids contemporary audiences who may be unaccustomed to the relatively oldfashioned cursive. The series' inclusion of lines of poetry in a mixed-media format thus affirms the beauty and artistry of Dickinson's poetry, while at the same time, its audiovisual representation also parses the poetry for today's viewers as a kind of less accessible, antiquated high culture.

**Figure 1.** Handwritten lines of Dickinson's poetry denote the ephemerality of the written word.

Many critics note approvingly that the show not only portrays queer desire but expands the previously reductionist view of Dickinson as an isolated, reclusive figure constantly clad in white dresses. *The Mary Sue*'s Stefania Sarrubba finds that the show "has been working relentlessly to do right by Emily Dickinson, leaving some of the most outdated, sexist myths about her behind" (Sarrubba 2021). Academic viewers tend to agree. Writing for *Slate*, literary scholar Johanna Winant explains that the show's "version of Dickinson is pretty close to my Emily Dickinson: the one I know not through her biography but through her poetry. The show isn't entirely accurate, but that doesn't mean it's not truthful" (Winant 2019). Indeed, we argue that *Dickinson* must be understood as a mediation of the poems and the poet's biography, filtered through contemporary popular culture, social media-informed humor, and celebrity feminism, which makes it more accessible and entertaining for a wider audience. Such an understanding of the show answers the question of how a canonized poet and her work can be popularized via televisual adaptation and become a part of popular culture.

A show such as *Dickinson* envisions a 19th-century Amherst much more suited to the vivid poetry of Emily Dickinson. In her research on the existing lore about anarchist writer Emma Goldman, feminist theorist Clare Hemmings develops the notion of an imaginative archive:

"[I]t foregrounds the gaps and fissures in the existing archives and positions the historian as a deeply serious writer and reader of fiction. That archive represents the straining to hear the voices that have never been heard, the attachments that cannot be given meaning, [ ... ] it grapples with the relationship between the dead and the living in order to enact the future one wants to bring about in the present." (Hemmings 2018, p. 8)

Hemmings highlights that fictional stories and storytelling offer modes of analysis and engagement for the making of alternative historical meanings that speak to contemporary audiences. Whereas showrunner Smith and the *Dickinson* writers' room incorporate meticulous research and archival work in their creation, their reimagining of Emily Dickinson also draws on an imaginative archive of popular culture.

This resonates with how current literary criticism, media studies, and popular culture studies are approaches that understand popular culture as an archive. For instance, Abigail De Kosnik explores the archiving and remixing practices of media users as a "rogue archive" that thrives under conditions of availability, accessibility, and Internet affordances. Such media users (re)create "content that has never been, and would likely never be, contained in a traditional memory institution", such as museums, libraries, and literary canons (De Kosnik 2016, p. 2). Such practices transform

"'archives' and 'archiving' from terms that signify exclusivity into terms that signify commonness, so that instead of locked rooms, the word 'archives' connotes websites that operate as information commons, and instead of the concealed workings of a rarified circle of experts, 'archiving' refers to acts of database design and maintenance that 'anyone can do', that are commonplace." (De Kosnik 2016, p. 3)

Whether described as "common" or "rogue", the everyday, digital archives that De Kosnik describes operate along similar lines as Hemmings' imaginative archive. Both conceptions allow for an understanding of how a popular show such as *Dickinson* approaches a historical author such as Dickinson and her literary legacy.

The show consciously crafts an irreverent, at times ludicrous, version of Dickinson and her family, signaling this artistic freedom in storytelling to its viewers and asking them to take pleasure in it. *Dickinson* exemplifies this Special Issue's definition of the popular as a question of attention; to be popular is to be noticed by many (Werber et al. in this issue), for instance on social media. "*Dickinson* appears to know exactly how Twitter will respond", writes critic Laura Bradley, and continues, "more importantly, the series wants its viewers to know that it's in on the joke—that it's always, always in on the joke" (Bradley 2019). The show's engagement with the imaginative archive of received wisdom about Emily Dickinson, combined with its winking mobilization of anachronism to foreground ideological shifts between past and present, constructs a knowing viewer ready to laugh at the incongruities and paradoxes inherent in the very idea of the great American poet twerking.

Perhaps the necessity for such critical anachronism becomes most obvious in the episode "The Future Never Spoke" (3.7), when Emily and her sister Lavinia accidentally travel to the future (through a magical gazebo) and find themselves in 1955—terrified of cars, lawn sprinklers, and airplanes. The simple fish-out-of-water anachronistic humor quickly complicates, however, as the two women are astonished to find their home turned into a museum dedicated to the memory of Emily as "the great American poet". They meet a local Smith College student in scarlet lipstick and saddle oxfords who sneaks them into the house, even though she takes them for wacky method actors (Figure 2). This student quickly reveals that she is also a poet: Sylvia Plath (Chloe Fineman). Plath expounds on her fascination for Dickinson and her feeling of "kinship" with the poet, and the sisters are awestruck by the contradictory ways that Emily is remembered. Yet, despite her admiration, Plath also becomes a mouthpiece for the many myths that accrued around her over the hundred years or so since Dickinson's life, some of which seem suspiciously parallel to Hawthorne's disdain for women writers:

Lavinia: Look, in the future, you are actually famous.

Sylvia: Well, not that famous. More of a local legend. An obscure, strange female poet who lived a sad, miserable life [ ... ] The only thing Emily Dickinson did was wear white and cry.

Lavinia: That's not accurate. She almost never wears white.

Emily: Emily Dickinson is not depressed. She does not want to die. She wants to live and connect with the world through her words.

Sylvia: Nah . . . . I would argue she died alone in her bedroom.

Emily and Lavinia challenge many of her assertions about the historical Dickinson, "Where do you get your information?!" to which Plath replies, "It's common knowledge". The preposterous device of time travel allows two of the most famous US American women poets to meet and, as with Emily's encounters with Alcott, discuss writing and disagree frequently. With its anachronistic humor, too, this scene is rescued from being too didactic as Plath dramatically intones, "Emily Dickinson was the original Sad Girl!".

**Figure 2.** Emily and Lavinia Dickinson time travel to 1955, where they meet young Smith College student Sylvia Plath at their former home, now the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Plath enjoys the argument and reveals to the sisters the "scandalous" interpretation of Dickinson as a lesbian—an unfamiliar word to the 19th-century women ("No, she was an American", insists Lavinia). The Plath interlude doubles down on the series' interrogations of popular literary biography by presenting yet another famous US American woman poet whose personal life—in this case, her mental health and suicide—have deeply influenced how her work is remembered and taught. Seeing young Plath as a college student, honing her own intellectual and aesthetic talents, extends the work of the series as a critical intervention into what we think we know about famous women writers and what might be missing from that knowledge. The episode also ominously underscores the continuing relevance of feminism for both women's timelines in Plath's closing warning: "Don't you know? The future never comes for women".

Interestingly, unlike the series, the site of the fictional conversation between Emily and Sylvia Plath (the Emily Dickinson Museum) itself remains curiously silent on queer framings of Dickinson. Bartram, Brown-Saracino, and Donovan explore the contradictory ways cultural institutions such as museums manage the gendered histories and sexual orientations of historical figures. Through participant observations of tours, they find that the Emily Dickinson Museum supports three different narratives about Dickinson's sexual orientation: as lesbian in a relationship with Sue, as heterosexual romantically involved with men, and as the asexual "Virgin of Amherst". While disregard for her potential bisexuality goes unchallenged in these narratives, Bartram et al. find that the museum presents "Emily's same-sex relationships as speculative, while offering evidence for her (also uncertain) heterosexual relations" (Bartram et al. 2019, p. 8). Overall, the museum depicts Dickinson as a remarkable, "unusual woman" transgressing gender norms; a depiction conflating gender identity and sexual orientation, the museum employs "the unusual woman as a categorizing schema, aimed at rendering uncertainty manageable" (Bartram et al. 2019, p. 13). Rather than employ silence as a means to manage unverified sexual orientations and omit potential queer histories, *Dickinson* unambiguously depicts Emily's queerness. Interestingly, Plath's gossipy comment about lesbianism leads Emily to come out to her sister, who reacts with understanding and support. Although, by the end of the episode, the time travel is revealed to have been Emily's dream and thus not shared by her sister.

#### **3. Of Cottagecore, Mermaids, and Suffering**

In the third season, Emily and her family try to cope with the Civil War that, despite geographical distance, dominates their lives and thinking. In a subplot, Emily's acquaintance Henry (Chinaza Uche) makes his way south to join the First South Carolina Regiment comprised of African American soldiers, the so-called Beaufort Boys, led by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Gabriel Ebert). Based on their actual historical correspondence, Emily writes letters to Higginson, who became a kind of editor and mentor for her. The season raises the question of whether Dickinson can be remembered as a war poet, considering how her poetry resonates with the traumatic experience of the war in complex ways. Emily grapples with the question of what role art, specifically poetry, can play in hard times. In the fourth episode, "This is My Letter to the World" (3.4, 2021), Emily's anxiety about the war and feelings of inadequacy about her role as a poet lead her to escapism, and she retreats to her conservatory with a book of poetry, Walt Whitman's *Leaves of Grass* (1855) (Figure 3).

**Figure 3.** Emily immerses herself in her newly arrived copy of *Leaves of Grass*, ensconced with her blue and white teacup and saucer in the conservatory surrounded by plants, including a 2020 pandemic favorite, the fiddle-leaf fig.

Surrounded by greenery, velvet pillows, blankets, and equipped with a steaming cup of tea, Emily's reading session looks remarkably like current social media posts by influencers celebrating self-care and bookish retreatism. However, this mise-en-scène revels in an alternative Internet aesthetic: "cottagecore": "an aestheticized, nostalgic yearning for a life of contained coziness, accented with vases of wildflowers, doilies, long flowing dresses, and delectable desserts" (Schollaert 2021, n.p.). Like dark academia, popular memes valorizing cottagecore tend to be understood as a Western European visual tradition, rightfully criticized for its white-centric focus.

In a tweet, Alison Herman even coins the expression "Dickinson-core", which Jeannette Schollaert expands to describe how the biographies and scholarship of the poet emphasize her domesticity, her long flowing dresses, gardening, and flower-pressing—all of which lend themselves to this feminized aesthetic appreciation: "The phenomenon of idealizing and romanticizing an aestheticized version of quaint cottage domestic life is not new, but the most recent #cottagecore trend bears striking similarities to the life and leisures of Emily Dickinson" (Schollaert 2021, n.p.; Herman 2021). Cottagecore flourished during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, coinciding with the release of *Dickinson*'s second and third seasons. Hence, when the show visually references the cozy aesthetic in this scene, it not only hyperbolizes the stereotypes of Dickinson's biography, but also participates in a meme aesthetic of spectacularized self-care and self-soothing widespread in pandemic popular culture. Emily's retreat from a family argument about the war into her new book initially conforms to the recent social media conventions of what comedian Bo Burnham gently mocked as "White Woman's Instagram".3

However, instead of consoling and distracting her from the tumultuous world of war and her questioning of artistic motivations, reading *Leaves of Grass* transports her in her imagination from her cottagecore conservatory to a field hospital in New York City where she is overwhelmed with the many suffering soldiers. Here, Emily meets a bearded white man nursing the injured: Walt Whitman himself, played by comedian Billy Eichner, whose performance lends the poet a rambunctious and unruly quality. Eichner's Whitman is fast-talking, esoteric, and all over the place bordering on barely coherent, yet firm in his connection to space: "I am everywhere. I am everything. I am the paving-man, the canal boy, the deck-hands, the clean-hair'd Yankee girl, the conductor, the s\*\*\*\*. I am the rattlesnake, the alligator, the panther, the black bear. I am Walt Whitman, cosmos, democracy, Manhattan. I am New York". This list is loosely paraphrased from sections 15 and 33 of Whitman's poem "Song of Myself"—which is part of the collection that Emily is reading. It recalls the poet's penchant for anaphora and lists, and the mystical multiplicity of his famous poems. Surprisingly, the series does not employ its characteristic anachronism in one moment of this scene. *Dickinson*'s Whitman reproduces a racist and misogynist ethnic slur for Indigenous North American women from his poem, without pausing to reflect upon the inappropriateness of the usage (for contemporary audiences), despite the show's seeming self-awareness of contemporary discursive norms.

Emily identifies herself as a poet to Whitman right away. She asks him about the question of artistic production that she struggles with: "someone told me that if I want to write great poetry, then I need to be like you, and I need to go out into the world and confront its pain". Offering little concrete advice, Whitman points to their surroundings, the injured soldiers: "what is pain to me but just another side of pleasure? What is a poet but just one facet of the all-powerful universe itself? You are not just Emily Dickinson, you are everyone. You are every man here. So you must not just ask the wounded person how he feels. You yourself must become the wounded person". Humorously, Emily oscillates between fangirling disciple eager for advice and dead-pan New Englander sarcastically responding to Whitman's exaggerated enumerations and puzzled by his cryptic exclamations.

While Emily is following Whitman around the hospital, they encounter yet another literary figure even more sarcastic and pragmatic than Emily in response to Whitman's ramblings. Again, there is Louisa May Alcott in a return performance by Zosia Mamet. Like Whitman, Alcott too volunteered to serve as a nurse in a field hospital. And in contrast to Whitman, the novelist offers a different take on artistic production. While Whitman treats the injured men around him as an esoteric inspiration, highlighting their cosmic interconnectedness and generalizing from their lives as yet another point in his many lists, Alcott leans into the specificity of their situation. She explicitly expresses her pragmatic writerly motivations: "I get so much great material from doing this [ ... ] great fiction is always based in fact, and this place is chock-full of specificity and detail, [ ... ] how wounds actually smell bad. Honestly, when some of these guys show up here, it is the vilest odor that has ever assaulted the human nose. It's kinda gross, but, you know, facts are facts". Neither Alcott's obsession with facts and the materiality of the war, nor Whitman's cosmic connectivity confirm Emily's suspicion that she needs to experience suffering in order to produce art (Figure 4).

**Figure 4.** Emily meets her literary hero Walt Whitman and her previous acquaintance Louisa May Alcott in a New York City field hospital. Neither of her fellow writers' approaches to artistic inspiration and suffering satisfies her questions about art in times of crisis and war.

Sensing her confusion, Whitman takes her on an escapade to the city: "Ah, so you're into pain, huh? Um, yeah? Well, then you've come to the right place! This is New York City, baby. The Bronx is up, the Battery's down, and pain is everywhere. Follow me, Emily Dickinson. Let's go hurt ourselves". He leads her to one of Greenwich Village's most iconic subcultural spaces in the 19th century: Pfaff's beer cellar. In the 1850s and 1860s, this vaulted-ceilinged saloon was a meeting spot for the literary, artistic, and bohemian scene, especially for queer men such as Whitman. At Pfaff's, Whitman and Dickinson encounter a roaring party with a diverse crowd of different body types, gender identities, and sexual orientations drinking, dancing, and flirting. In this setting, Emily discloses her deep romantic and sexual love for Sue and realizes that this love may serve as much better artistic inspiration. In an emotional confession, she yells at the excited Whitman: "I love Sue! And I ... I want her and I can't get enough of her. And if I was on my deathbed right now, all I would want is Sue!" While Emily is still trying to understand the implications of this revelation, she is pulled onto the dance floor by a mermaid played by Beth Ditto, the glamorous queer performer known for her work with the indie rock band Gossip. At the bar, Whitman marvels at the sight before joining the dancing crowd himself: "Drink with the drinkers. Dance with the dancers. Come on! New York is back!" Whitman's declaration

is a clear allusion to the declaration resounding around the city after COVID-19 killed almost 44,000 New Yorkers in 2020, signaling not only an affirmation of life emerging from the horrors of the Civil War, but also the contemporary reality of the show's viewers and their desire for a return to a pre-pandemic dance floor amid their own twenty-first-century grief over such staggering loss of life.

Although, visually, Ditto's golden mermaid costume, topped with an extravagant crown, stands out on the dance floor, she does not perform in the scene, and the characters dance to another song. Acoustically, the scene layers Dickinson's poem 441 with the lyrics of the deep house song "One More Time" (2021).4 The song was the much-awaited collaboration by two of the most prominent commercial German EDM DJs and musical producers, Robin Schulz and Felix Jaehn, featuring the voice of Norwegian singer-songwriter Alida. The song has been extremely popular, as the 13 million clicks of the official video on YouTube indicate. Though the series also features lesser-known independent musical artists, the inclusion of such a popular song in this scene is remarkable. Dickinson's elaborate poetic voice stands in stark contrast to the song's straightforward, repetitive, and clichéd lyrics. Yet both reinforce the sentiments of the other, demonstrating the possible affective connections between something as "lowbrow" as commercial electronic dance music and as "highbrow" as Dickinson's poetry. The following quotation demonstrates how the scene weaves the lines of the poem 441 (left column) and song (right column) into one another.


Then we'll do it one more time

Dickinson's poetic voice laments the lack of response of the world that she writes to; her letter is as easily understandable as the poem itself. And yet the lyrics of the song insist that such a lack of response would never diminish the speaker herself, as evident in the sunshine that cannot be taken from her. While the poem's "letter" is inspired by the "News" told to the speaker by "Nature", the song's lyrics are addressed to a beloved "darling" with whom the singer's poetic persona shares a "last song" on the dancefloor. The notion of this being the "last sunset" projects an impression of carpe diem or YOLO (you only live once), while as a punchline, the song's last line betrays this last song to not actually be the last ("we'll do it one more time"). Meanwhile, the poem's request to be judged tenderly by the members of one's community ("sweet countrymen") hence becomes situated in the present

and allows Emily to express herself free of the consideration of others, both in her own poetry and there in the queer space of the club dancefloor.

#### **4. Conclusions**

By examining the popular television show *Dickinson*, this article explores how contemporary television may exceed distinctions between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" cultural productions—as well as previous valorizations of specific television shows as "quality TV"—through a particular remix aesthetic form. This remixing practice develops through dissonance and anachronism. It strengthens the cultural understanding of the life, oeuvre, and milieu of Emily Dickinson through overlapping it with contemporary popular culture, Internet culture, and youth culture. Such remixes range from visual overlaps (such as the cottagecore aesthetic) to sound (the use of contemporary commercial music such as EDM) to characterization (through the paratextual star texts of actors performing as literary or historical celebrities in the cameos) to language (current slang or profanity employed by 19th-century characters). These remixes appear to selectively modernize the 19th-century poet and her oeuvre, hence updating a literary history and group of poems deemed high culture and making them appealing for contemporary audiences. However, what *Dickinson* undertakes is much more than a mere update of Emily Dickinson's life and poems to didactically make them palatable for a new generation of readers.

Understanding such remixes as what Clare Hemmings calls an "imaginative archive" and Abigail De Kosnik, a "rogue archive", we have argued that the series remixes Emily Dickinson's biography and poems via social media memes, celebrity culture, and feminist popular culture, allowing viewers of *Dickinson* to question the ways the famous poet is remembered and appreciate alternative stories about her. Looking at episodes in which Emily Dickinson encounters other prominent literary figures, such as Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, and Sylvia Plath, our readings tease out some of the show's deliberate anachronisms. These encounters enable deeply gendered conversations about memory, collectivity, artistic production, and commercial reception. The series *Dickinson* imagines its viewer as in the know, if not necessarily about the particulars of literary figures and their work, then about how gender and race will impact how we remember famous historical figures and what might be missing from that memory.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, J.L. and M.S.; methodology, J.L. and M.S.; formal analysis, J.L. and M.S.; writing—original draft preparation, J.L. and M.S.; writing—review and editing, J.L. and M.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Data Availability Statement:** This research produced no data.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**


made out of driftwood/A bobblehead of Ruth Bader Ginsburg/A needlepoint of a fox". As the song title indicates, Burnham ridicules these elements of a particularly gendered and racialized social media performance enacted so repetitively to have become a cliché—yet also poignantly providing the women enacting them with a means to express feelings of loneliness online. In the second half of the song, Burnham describes the consolation or self-soothing that such social media posts create for their originators even as they flaunt white privilege. *Dickinson*'s visual enactment of cottagecore can be understood to allow for similar affective communication with the audience through the easy recognizability of Emily's cozy self-care reading session.

<sup>4</sup> Emily Dickinson not only published none of her approximately 1775 poems, except a few anonymously, but also did not title them. Her poems are generally known by their first lines or by numbers assigned to them by editors to describe an assumed chronology. For example, "This is my letter to the World" is referred to as either poem no. 441 in the collection *The Poems of Emily Dickinson* (1955) edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Dickinson and Johnson 1955) or as poem no. 519 in *The Poems of Emily Dickinson* (1998) edited by R.W. Franklin (Dickinson and Franklin 1998).

#### **References**


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