Comic-Con 2020: How 'Motherland: Fort Salem' shies away from addressing racism and homophobia on the show
'Motherland: Fort Salem' has been praised for its portrayal of feminist power, for its queer representation and for the positions of power that it places its Black female leads in. However, while the show explored a great many nuanced issues, one issue that it is noticeably silent on is that of racism. The show appears to have sidestepped the issue entirely by portraying a world where it does not appear to exist - to the extent that its world features a Black female President and in a recent Comic-Con panel, we learn that this was a conscious choice made by the series' showrunner, Eliot Laurence.
In the panel entitled 'Motherland: Fort Salem: A World of Magic, Action, and Intrigue,' Laurence answered a fan question about how the world of the show seems to be devoid of racism and homophobia, whether or not these elements would be explored in Season 2 and if their exclusion was a conscious choice. Laurence explained that it was, indeed a conscious choice, explaining that the world of 'Motherland: Fort Salem' was in effect in its own bubble.
"It was a conscious decision," he said, "and one thing to remember is that what we think of as the world of the show is kind of a pocket world of this base life of this subsection of American society that is the military. It is sort of a bubble, and because female power in the American military and militaries around the world has been so visible and present...the tide has shifted towards feminism in the world at large, but it's still not a perfect place. There's still bigotry and racism."
He did note that in this alternate history, Black families like the Bellweathers' involvement in military service allowed them to accrue wealth and power in a way that established powerful dynasties, that alter certain aspects of White supremacy - at least, within the bubble of the show. While Laurence did tease stories of bigotry in the season ahead, he seemed to imply that that bigotry would be directed at witches in general - not dependent on race or sexual orientation.
For a show that enjoys tackling nuanced issues as well as it does, it seems strange that race and homophobia would be looked over as much as it is. The show neatly skips over dealing with the problem by imagining a society where it isn't relevant, thus avoiding talking about the issue entirely and it even ignores the idea that the issue exists in the first place. It's a shortcut to empowerment and robs viewers of the chance to see how their favorite characters would deal with those kinds of real-wold issues as those issues are an important part of that story when it comes to representation.
The cast joked about Laurence's limited perspective even as they praised him for his vision of female empowerment, but the joke raises an important point. A showrunner in Laurence's position is privileged enough to be able to be blind to issues of race and homophobia and while 'Motherland: Fort Salem' widely broadens the scope of what stories are told on the show, in other aspects, it remains blind.
You can watch the entirety of the panel here. "Motherland: Fort Salem' has been renewed for a Season 2, though there is no word yet of when it will release.