If you made it through the alphabet soup of that post title, congratulations! Your reward is that I’m gonna explain what the hell it is.

The acronym stands for The Year of “Taking In Media Made Primarily By Women And People of Color Instead Of More Stuff By White Dudes 2017” and it is something I chose to do this year for a few reasons:

  1. Supporting media made by underrepresented groups financially means that the industry will pay more attention to them and be more inclusive.
  2. There’s such breadth and diversity out there and reading/listening to/watching only one kind of person is really a shame in light of that.
  3. I was tired of white dude stories.

One year while I was in college I went the whole academic year reading only books by women (aside from stuff that was assigned reading) and it changed my life. I wanted to see what would happen if I chose to do a similar project again a decade later.

Some ground rules:

  • This applies to new media. Re-watches or Re-reads don’t “count” but I will still limit my intake of old favorites that fall under “white dude” territory in favor of other options.
  • I have to expand my reach in each category (film, tv, writing, podcasts, music) by at least one thing each month.
  • The focus is on contemporary or new-to-me works, as I have covered many of the “classics” in these areas in the past. (Readers: please keep this in mind if you make suggestions.)

I’m tracking my media in my Passion Planner and will update this post with thoughts and the media I consumed each month. Stay tuned and feel free to play along!

JANUARY

Movies: 13th, Hidden Figures

TV: Master of None, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Cristela Alonzo’s Lower Classy, Steven Universe

Music: Hamilton (I mean…always), Childish Gambino, Aimee Mann

Podcasts: Call Your Girlfriend, Put Your Hands Together, Politically Re-Active

Writing: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison, Over the Plain Houses by Julia Franks

FEBRUARY

This month was a challenge because I was performing in a musical (Ragtime) and writing & recording an EP, so I didn’t have as much time to take in other media. But I did get a few new things in

Movies:  The Babadook, Tangerine

TV: Luke Cage, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (S2)

Music: Sarah Donner & Kittens Slay Dragons Big Big Heart, The Hamilton Mixtape, Anais Mitchell Hadestown

Podcasts: Code Switch

Writing: The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemison, Real Artists Have Day Jobs by Sara Benincasa

MARCH

Y’all, I am not missing my old media habits At. All. I’m just not. At the start of this month, I removed everything from my Netflix “to watch” list and started fresh, adding anything that looked interesting and fit into my requirements. Now it’s easier for me to scroll through my options instead of scouring a list for something until I’m too tired to watch anyway.
I even did a version of this project “live” while I was on the JoCo Cruise at the start of the month. While it is difficult to completely avoid stuff made by White Dudes on a cruise tailored to nerd culture, I went out of my way to make time for and attend things presented by the non-white and non-dude performers and guests. It was a huge help that each year, the organizers of the cruise add more women and POC to the roster than they had the year before. Even though it’s nowhere close to “enough” diversity, they’re doing a bang-up job compared to typical cons.

Highlights were Aimee Mann, Zoe Keating, Cameron Esposito & Rhea Butcher, Jean Grae, Tawny Newsome, Hrishikesh Hirway (Song Exploder), Mary Robinette Kowal, Jackie Kashian, and Rebecca Effing Sugar (Creator of Steven Universe).

Movies:  Get Out, As(h)oka

TV: Celia, Atlanta, sense8

Music: (see live music above), also checked out a bunch of instrumental hip-hop and Earl St. Clair’s My Name is Earl

Podcasts: Food Stuff, Song Exploder, JV Club

Writing: Piper Perish by Kayla Cagan

APRIL

Movies:  Moana

TV: Chewing Gum

Music: Aimee Mann, Mental Illness; Norah Jones, Day Breaks

Podcasts: 2 Dope Queens, Politically Re-Active (S2)

Writing: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher; Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote

MAY

Movies:  Miss Sharon Jones, The Girl King

TV: sense8 (S2), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (S3)

Music: Margo Price, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter

Podcasts: Last Name Basis, The Hidden Brain

Writing: Jaran by Kate Elliott; The Door by Margaret Atwood

BONUS: I also played a lot of Gravity Ghost, a puzzle game designed by Erin Robinson.

JUNE

Movies: Wonder Woman, Rough Night, Suicide Kale

TV: Her Story, GLOW, Unicornland

Music: Charly Bliss, Guppy; ALA.NI, You & I

Podcasts: Nancy, LeVar Burton Reads, The Complete Woman Series

Writing: salt., by Nayyirah Waheed; Binti, Nnedi Okorafor; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin

JULY

Movies: The Big Sick

TV: Master of None (S2), Danger & Eggs (S1)

Music: The Beast, Valerie June

Podcasts: Happier in Hollywood

Writing: Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal; The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

AUGUST

Movies: Deirdre & Laney Rob a Train, Tallulah

TV: Friends From College (S1), Crashing (S1), Fleabag (S1)

Music: Miss Eaves, Feminasty; The Doubleclicks, Love Problems

Podcasts: Queery with Cameron Esposito

Writing: MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood; Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor

 

SEPTEMBER

Movies: Today’s Special

TV: Thirty (web series) ; Insecure

Music: Tori Amos, Native Invader

Podcasts: Spilled Milk; Reveal

Writing: The Stone Sky, N.K. Jemesin

 

OCTOBER

Movies: Inn Saei: The Power of Intuition

TV:  One Mississippi (S1); Z: The Beginning of Everything

Music: Rhiannon Giddens, Freedom Highway

Podcasts: You Must Remember This

Writing: Whiskey Women by Fred Minnick (gave myself a technical pass on this one since it was non-fiction centered on women.)

NOVEMBER

Movies: What Happened, Miss Simone?; Thor: Ragnarok

TV: Call The Midwife (S1)

Music: Mavis Staples, If All I Was Was Black; Talib Kweli, Radio Silence

Podcasts: Baby Geniuses

Writing: Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado

DECEMBER

Movies: Sleeping With Other People, To The Bone

TV: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; She’s Gotta Have It

Music: Miguel Zenón, Tipico; Danay Suarez, Palabras Manuales; Sia, Every Day Is Christmas

Podcasts: Another Round with Heben & Tracy

Writing: Kitchen Table Tarot, Melissa Cynova; Ayoade on Ayoade, Richard Ayoade; The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers