to be in earnest about her loving relationship with John Booth ( Ioan Gruffudd ) and her attempt to have a child with him . Her one moment of weakness reveals that she chose her career over motherhood , that she wanted a choice to become a mother , and gives the audience pause to consider whether she unnaturally abandoned her biological destiny for motherhood , as the essentialists would have it .
Racial Essentialism in Season 2 of UnREAL
The most pronounced iteration of racial essentialism in Season 2 resides in the background racist assumption regarding the suitor , Darrius Beck , a black man . Beck is an NFL quarterback , and the professional sports such as the NFL often perpetuate one of the most significant racist and essentialist tropes of chattel slavery in the United States . Beck , qua black man , is the physically superior , mentally inferior , athlete , who is managed by the physically inferior , mentally superior head coach or general manager . NFL players such as Darrius are well-paid instruments for team profit , while plantation owners used physically superior , unpaid black slaves for profit . The producers of Everlasting have convinced Darrius that starring as its suitor will rehabilitate his image , which was damaged because he said , “ Bitch , please ” to a female reporter in a post-game interview , an instance that evokes the image of Seattle Seahawks ’ Richard Sherman frightening Erin Andrews in a rant during postgame interview . On the show , Darrius is directed and manipulated by a white show-runner , Rachel , and a white producer , Quinn . That his overlords are white women is a reminder of the fact that white women were implicated in the practice of the lynching of black men by perpetuating the myth of white purity , the myth of the black rapist , and the idea that miscegenation manifested the taboo against the desecration of such purity .
Further , that at least one of Beck ’ s puppeteers , Rachel , considers herself a feminist , indicates UnREAL ’ s subtle critique of white feminism ’ s racist elements . White feminists are not immune from participating in the subordination of black people . Tommy Curry points out that Catherine MacKinnon refuses to admit that white women were complicit in anti-black racism in her piece discussed below , “ From Practice to Theory , or What is a White Woman Anyway ?” Currie and others , such as Angela Harris , claim that the piece itself is racist . Rachel , the white feminist showrunner , is complicit as well . She consciously puts Darrius ’ s career at risk by directing one of the contestants to viciously tackle him when he was not expecting it . Then she entices him to take an epidural , stifling his pain but putting him at even greater risk . Here the white feminist actually plays the role of the white NFL managerial
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