Novelette Is Trying: An Ode to Black Femmehood in "Vancouver"
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film still from Novelette is trying. Premiered at vancouver queer film festival 2024. image courtesy of vqff.
Novelette is Trying is a heartwarming five-part series about a Black, disabled, bisexual woman falling into a sudden transitional journey in her late twenties. The catalyst of this new era is, unfortunately, a result of her being subjected to the ableism of her ex-boyfriend amidst being broken up with, and being painfully unequipped to articulate the emotional harm that he is causing her through his insensitive justifications for ending their long term relationship of six years.
This leads Novelette into a series of situations outside of her comfort zone as a means of adjusting to this sudden change that gives her space to explore suppressed parts of herself, and work towards recovering from newfound financial and housing instability. Novelette rushes to find a new roommate online to no avail until she hears word from her friend Dominique that there is someone that she knows who is looking for a spot. Relieved but vigilant, Novelette accepts the application of Dominique’s friend Audre to move into the room of her ex – only to clash due to boundaries of courtesy and roommate etiquette that are violated in the name of being openly queer, sexually active, and not repressed. This tension between Novelette and Audre later reveals itself as simultaneously being rooted in comphet envy of Audre‘s sapphic, communicative, sexually active, and transparent non-monogamous relationship dynamics that Novelette is later invited and encouraged to explore for herself.
As a means of pursuing financial security, Novelette reluctantly pursues a position in her mother’s non-profit industrial complex job at some environmentalist organization founded by a rich white family that means well but is very optics-centred, individualistic, and perpetuates big oil propaganda about how you can stop climate change by recycling and sorting your waste, rather than addressing how climate change is a systemic issue that can only be addressed through Land Back and the abolition of racial-capitalism.
film still from Novelette is trying. Premiered at vancouver queer film festival 2024. image courtesy of vqff.
Immediately after finishing the five part series of Novelette Is Trying, I felt as though it wouldn’t be fair of me to form an opinion on it yet because the story ends on a cliffhanger. There is so much more to be said and explored in Novelette's new era. I’m emotionally invested in seeing how she navigates unsubscribing from comphet socialization and engages more in Black sapphic situationships and relationships. Further being, Novelette represents such a rare—chaotic ‘cause of how small the city's sapphic scene is—yet beautiful experience in what is colonially known as “East Vancouver.”
Additionally, I am invested in watching her grow more into disability justice as an advocate and organizer myself. I want to witness her articulating her relationship with her disability as social barriers imposed upon her and questioning bio-physiological definitions of normalcy as a means of personal affirmation and reassurance against external and internalized ableism. I want to witness Novelette in a safe enough environment to be emotionally vulnerable with her friends and future partners to share what she’s on disability for, or at least to be open about where she falls on the medical model of disability without being subjected to ableism or saneism as a result, like she has in the past. It was heartbreaking to watch Novelette not have anyone or anything to turn to during the scenes she was subjected to ableism, and I hope that in future episodes that she is able to support herself in those moments, to be surrounded with people that are more aware, and/or witness a cultural shift among her current circle. There is beauty in media depicting the rarity that is a Black disabled woman who is seemingly “able-bodied” receiving the support that she needs.
I want to see Novelette introduced to and engaged in a conceptualization of queerness that goes beyond an understanding of it being synonymous with LGBT but as defined in Towards The Queerest Insurrection by Mary Nardini Gang in the following excerpt:
Some will read “queer” as synonymous with “gay and lesbian” or “LGBT”. This reading falls short. While those who would fit within the constructions of “L”, “G”, “B”, or “T” could fall within the discursive limits of queer, queer is not a stable area to inhabit. Queer is not merely another identity that can be tacked onto a list of neat social categories, nor the quantitative sum of identities. Rather, it is the qualitative position of opposition to presentations of stability - an identity that problematizes the manageable limits of identity. Queer is a territory of tension, defined against the dominant narrative of white-hetro-monogamous-patriarchy, but also by affinity with all who are marginalized, otherized and oppressed. Queer is the abnormal, the strange, the dangerous. Queer involves our sexuality and our gender but also so much more. It is our desire and fantasies and more still. Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world. Queer is a total rejection of the regime of the Normal.
I want to see her navigate this manifestation of queerness not only in the context of her Black femmehood, but as the root of her cynicism at her nonsensical non-profit industrial complex job, and the predicament that is pursuing and retaining financial security in places that you don’t belong in.
Ultimately, I really enjoyed watching Novelette is Trying. I look forward to and hope that there is more in store for Novelette and that she gets to experience something beyond what the audience has witnessed within this five-part series. I hope that through this, Novelette becomes a depiction of Afro-futurism set in the alluring mundane of daily life experiences, rather than a distant future, as she overcomes and challenges the ways in which oppressive systems established in the past manifest in her daily life as a Black disabled femme in “Vancouver.”
Dani Beyene is a Youth Activist, Organizer, and visionary of the “#BlackVoidUBC” campaign for the investment and expansion of UBC African Studies demanding a formal apology for the institution’s historical and present anti-Blackness. Their curatorial practice works to honor disability justice and uplifting QTBIPOC creatives in Vancouver's DIY scene. With the better-known moniker DANI YOUR DARLING, they utilize mediums including writing, photography, painting, producing, poetry, illustration, digital art, singing, songwriting, and creative directing. Their intuitive artistic practice is informed by their background in community organizing, exploring narratives surrounding Afro-pessimism, Afro-futurism, abolition, Black queerness, the mundane, disability justice, diasporic return, Land Back situated in the African continent, and their relationship with the Downtown Eastside. DANI YOUR DARLING has performed and had their art exhibited at grassroot organizations such as the Vancouver Black Library, Unity Arts Collective, Art Ecosystems, Britannia Art Gallery, Hatch Art Gallery and many others.
