It's about time! Plus talking mixed-ish on Disney+

Hi everyone!

Bloody hell, what a year it has been! I hope you have all been doing well despite the countless lockdowns, endless TikTok dances and the constant wondering whether we can leave the house again or not. The past 18 months have been peculiar to say the least and to be honest with you, this isn't the first post I have written since my last public entry.

I know that I am not a journalist in the slightest, but as some of you may know, article and blog writing isn’t the only type of writing I do. I have 3 drafts of different blog entries I was about to publish but I haven’t been able to be fully happy with any of my forms of writing for one reason or another, and I am still trying to figure out why. Change and I have never gotten along, and I guess it can affect you in ways you didn’t know it could. So, I decided to bite the bullet and not just embrace it, but to merge it with other parts of life that I love.

I adore films, TV, music and poetry as well, and as you might be able to tell from my page’s glow-up, I have decided to add a few more things to my blog. I will still be writing about the things I care about like I always have, but I have decided to write about more things I am interested in that people might find more interesting. Now more than ever, escapism has become even more tantalising and hopefully this blog might be able to do that for you, even if it is for a little bit.

Don’t worry, this article will not go on forever, so I’ll talk about a show I have discovered on Disney+ in the last week or so, which has been able to talk about something important whilst making many people laugh at the same time…mixed-ish!

For those of you who haven’t heard of this show before, Mixed-ish is a new spin-off of the show “black-ish”, which has been very popular in both the US and around the world. I haven’t watched ‘black-ish’ yet, but if it is similar to ‘mixed-ish’, I’ll definitely check it out too!

Promotional poster for mixed-ish. All rights go to their respective owners, I do not own anything.

‘mixed-ish’ jumps between the present and the past of a woman called Rainbow ‘Bow’ played by the icon that is Tracee Ellis Ross. Ellis Ross, who stars in the show - as well as narrating and co-creating the series - is introduced as a married mother of four, telling her children about what life was like as a 12-year-old growing up as a mixed-race child in 1985. It then shows her as the eldest of 3 children, growing up in a hippie commune with her white father and her African-American mother, in which all the families grew up in a relaxed, alternative and loving environment where race wasn’t a divider, but it also wasn’t acknowledged. Then when the FBI come and break up this community of peace and love, Bow and her family are forced to move into the sudden reality of the suburbs, where she and her siblings realise how different - and sheltered - their lives have been until now.

One of the things I love about this series is not only does it show both sides of the coin in terms of talking about and acknowledging race, but it can also apply to several aspects of life, both related and unrelated to race. On a personal level, even though I am not of African descent, I’m half British and half Southeast Asian and growing up in mainly Western countries, I didn’t really think anything about my life, heritage or skin tone was “different” until the real world hit me when I was a teenager. I was very lucky to grow up in a loving and caring family environment, where the integration of both my mother’s and father’s heritage weren’t just celebrated, but it was also normal as I never knew anything different.

But outside of the boundaries of race, I think everyone in their lives has experienced one form or another of feeling different, whether it is where you live, who you love, what you are interested in; and that isn’t even a tenth of it. And I say “feeling different” on purpose here, because no matter how many people or what site or organisation tells you that you’re different, please know that it’s not because they are saying that you are: it is because they want you to feel different to everyone else. Why? Who the hell knows. And the worst part is that they probably aren’t even doing it intentionally. Are you different? Honestly, what is different anyway?! However you want to define yourself, the only person who can - and who has a right to define who you are is you. Just because a person or multiple choice form requires you to check a box doesn’t mean you have or need to. After years of being called “different” in one way or another - or when people have used malicious versions of that word - I have slowly begun to accept that the people I love most in my life accept and love me for who I am, and that’s all that matters to me now.

I am nowhere near an expert, so please do not take my word as gospel. Whoever you are and however you choose to define or not define yourself as, you are brilliant as you are and I sure as hell love you for it.

Sending you love and hopefully it won't be as long until the next time you hear from me!

Love, E. x