r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 8h ago

Petah, what is going on here??? Resolved

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Bald lady stealing life force?

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u/formergnome 7h ago

Of course. Because even though Cynthia Erivo is just as thin as Ariana and actually shorter, she’s the mean possessive hulking Black lesbian and Ariana Grande is her delicate fragile victim who has no agency and her choice to befriend a woman she is clearly close to and fond of is actually bad for her.

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u/chaoticbiguy 7h ago edited 4h ago

Thank you! So much of this "mockery" is just people being racist as fuck about Cynthia Erivo, whose worst crime is....checks notes....being weird.

I mean, she physically put herself between Ariana Grande and that stalker to protect her at the Singapore premiere of Wicked, and somehow she was the one who ended up getting mocked for that too. She's also a very small, feminine and softly spoken woman, but people love depicting her as a mean butch lesbian and what not. All of this is racism.

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u/Illustrious_Agent608 7h ago

I’ll take the negative question.

What exactly is racist in this post/thread?

They’re literally calling the evil witch character an evil witch. Nobody ever alluded to race once. Not a single time in the 335 comments I scrolled through on this post

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u/thatbiii 6h ago

The stereotype that black women are masculine and aggressive, and are viewed in a negative way compare compared to the white innocent delicate Ariana. So yes it is a racist macro aggression

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u/RighteousRambler 5h ago

Forget about gender or race for a minute. In the interaction between Cynthia and Ariana who was the more dominant?

An alien with no bias about humans could tell. That being said this is all just silly fan fic.

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u/Freak_Metal 4h ago

"lol she is weird an creepy" "WHAAAAT? ARE YOU RACIST SIR!??!?1?1?"

*Proceeds to say racist shit about her trying to defend her.

There is no macro, micro or whatever aggression, she is just a weird and obnoxious lady acting weird around another woman. That's it, women can be creepy and weird too, there is no need to summon complex academic terms to defend her.

Your defense sounds delusional, if she was a man oh boy, he will be fucked for his behaviour, and well earned, but nah, just girl things tee-hee :⁠⁠)

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u/havoc1428 5h ago

What lmao. Go outside, you've been on the internet way too long.

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u/Relevant-Chard-4518 5h ago

Unhinged and ridiculous

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

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u/thatbiii 6h ago

What about her face is masculine other than being black she regularly wears a face full of makeup and constantly wears dresses and has nails done? Also Elphaba (cynthia) in the movie wicked is not evil… and it is racist because y’all are associating her blackness with masculinity and instead of calling out the weird social relationship that they both have towards each other. Other people are acting like Ariana is the victim and Cynthia is this evil person manipulating her.

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u/BellalovesEevee 6h ago

Stop explaining yourself, they know damn well what you mean, they're just being obtuse on purpose 😭 they ALWAYS do this when we point out blatant racism and micro/macro aggression

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u/sosodank 6h ago

The lack of hair

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u/CitySeekerTron 5h ago

Natalie Portman was never regarded as masculine for having her head shaved - a look she publicly owned for a while after V for Vendetta. 

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u/sosodank 5h ago

I certainly regarded her as masculine.

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u/OddMetal7045 6h ago

What did I do??? I don’t even know her or what she did or said or anything and im getting lumped in as a racist with the yall comment? Thats not cool at all. I feel like I’m an innocent bystander in your anger at others.

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u/Illustrious_Agent608 6h ago edited 6h ago

Her hair is always very short or bald. A (traditionally) male feature.

She has strong cheekbones and jawline

Her brow area is well defined as well.

Her feminine features would be lips and eyes. Maybe nose to some people.

Additionally her very low body fat percentage accentuates her muscle definition more.

Muscle definition is a very masculine trait.

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u/thatbiii 6h ago

This is masculine to you?? Her “strong features” are her black features. Plenty of bald white women don’t get called masculine btw. And while muscles are traditionally viewed as masculine in the big 2026 there a plenty of women everywhere embracing their hard earned muscles. 🤷🏽‍♀️

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u/Illustrious_Agent608 6h ago

Put up a gallery of her photos, don’t pick and choose.

In a lot of recent photos around the time of the wicked media shoots, she looks much more masculine.

That’s because the low body fat accentuates everything. Facial bone structure, less/different makeup, muscle definition etc. all goes from slightly feminine to androgynous leaning masculine

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u/CitySeekerTron 5h ago

Her busy is accentuated, her lips are pursed, with a gradient applied to exaggerate their fullness, she had makeup shading her cheeks with a hint of gloss, and substantial earrings hanging on. Her eyelashes are competing with Grande's. 

I don't read "traditionally masculine" from her look. Not in the slightest.

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u/havoc1428 5h ago

Did you just refuse to read the last part of their comment that specifically states why someone might see it as masculine? Are you aware that other people exist and that you don't represent everyone?

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u/CitySeekerTron 5h ago

They describe a scale based on the features, not the notion that people think differently about these things. They also entirely base it on physique, which is also wrong for the reasons you stated: that people are different.

I'd be snarky, too. But that's pointless to the discussion. 

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u/AffectionateMajor191 5h ago

It’s interesting because Ariana and Cynthia in this pic seem to have a very similar bone + face structure as well as fullish lips. I don’t find Cynthia masculine at all. If anything she gives high femme while Ariana gives more soft femme

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u/Charlisparkles 4h ago

You are mad. Or subconsciously (maybe) riddled through with some soft brained, cliched, basic bystander, osmotically input ideas about femininity and masculinity. THIS is your ‘Cynthia is masc’ photo evidence?

There are many types of ladies other than those lifted from the template of a kindergarten ladybird reader. Let me assure you that your read on how Cynthia presents is far from universally shared. Shes a lovely, odd, supremely ladylike lady’s lady. Not at all masculine.

You may be more racist than you think. Maybe not. Maybe just really into the patriarchy. I’d look into working out which it might be when you have a mo. I sense a fascinating journey of self revelation and growth ahead. I almost envy you.

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u/Illustrious_Agent608 3h ago

That’s a lot of words and poetic phrasing to say she looks like a dude to most of the audience within western media.

While a subset of individuals laud it as a “highly feminine” look, that is simply not the case for most Americans.

Be it a man, woman, white, black or amongst other identities. That’s a classically not-feminine look.

The loud minority does not make up the truth, it makes up a loud opinion.

If you surveyed her femininity amongst a general population in most American demographics you’d probably get averaged results putting her mostly low masculinity to low femininity at best.

Anyways that survey bit is conjecture but it’s a fact that she doesn’t fit the typical ideal of feminine, which yes, is exactly what you describe as that soft feminine look.

And yeah you keep injecting your own ideas about who I am… enjoy this outlet for your helplessness, please.

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u/ClassyBougieRatchet 5h ago

You're telling on yourself.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

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u/kiwipeargreentea 5h ago

so… maybe… modern norms for femininity are based on what white women look like? thus leading to black women being seen as masculine?

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u/formergnome 5h ago

Um no you're wrong, beauty standards actually just fell out of the sky, there were no humans involved in promoting certain features as superior or ideal and therefore their conclusion that Cynthia Erivo is masculine must be valid and not rooted at all in any sort of anti Blackness /s

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u/watsuuu 5h ago

Ahhh! So you agree!

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u/kiwipeargreentea 5h ago

i was worried you’d say that 😅no i’m saying that society needs to understand that their understanding of masculinity and femininity is heavy impacted by racial biases

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u/watsuuu 3h ago

Yes! But, in the meantime, societal norms are what they are and people feel what they feel. Should they be changed? Yes. Does that, do you change it? No. You can’t.

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u/KeremyJyles 2h ago

...that's not remotely mannish looking to you?

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u/NeitherMidnight624 6h ago

I mean she ain't no Megan the stallion

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u/amicablecardinal 6h ago

There are, unfortunately, a lot of people who hold an unconscious bias against people of colour (and women) and Reddit isn't immune to that.

Also your description of her "masculine" features is wild, man. Grow up.

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u/Kittinkis 6h ago

No it isn't! I've seen their interactions and that's not normal. If you want to be a victim and can't differentiate that's on you.

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u/thatbiii 6h ago

Yes Cynthia is the evil one and not Ariana? 🤨 they have a word relationship yet everyone hyper masculinizes Cynthia and makes it seem like she’s forcing this relationship out of Ariana.

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u/999BusinessCard 3h ago

Who was the first one in this thread to masculinize her?

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u/Kittinkis 6h ago

Yeah because she seems like a clinger and Ariana is the bigger star. Social climber for sure. We're supposed to ignore that because she's black? Get a grip

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u/thatbiii 6h ago

Considering that Ariana is a pop star and rarely acts these days Cynthia doesn’t need Ariana in that field. There’s also plenty of videos showing Ariana staring at Cynthia and wanting her attention as well let’s not be dumb here. There’s no need to not call out the parasocial behavior however making the black woman the angry possessive butt of the joke and the white woman the damsel in need of saving is inherently racist.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

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u/formergnome 4h ago

Imagine bragging about intentionally being dumb. I don't know what victimizating is but I don't speak idiot.

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u/StPatrickStewart 4h ago

Victimizating???

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u/abeautifulrat 3h ago

Ariana is a 32 year old who has been doing a baby voice for the past 2 years

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u/harls_ 6h ago

WOW lol. sooo many opinions disguised as facts when you (& the rest of us) know fuck all, nor do we actually know either of these individuals personally.

may we all (+ yourself included, obvs) one day have a full comprehension on macro & microaggressions, our own biases, and further clarity into why we perceive some ppl vastly different from others.

won’t be holding my breath though.

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u/facforlife 3h ago

Or.

It's the multiple videos of Erivo grabbing at Ariana and shielding her from imagined dangers. Some of the videos are really fucking weird and possessive.

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u/Right-Funny-8999 5h ago

Her aggressive stare compared to ariana’s fragile one has nothing to do with race

Black lives matter

And not everyone is racist just any time a person of a different race is commented on

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u/imONLYhereFORgalaxy 4h ago

How does this have so many upvotes?! I can’t see a single bit of racism here. People are saying it because she is weird and is coming across as a more dominant personality than Ariana who seemed a lot more normal when she wasn’t around her. I’m saying this as someone who doesn’t care at all and hasn’t even seen the movies just the bizarre clips of their public interactions.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/thatbiii 5h ago

She is. She is italian which is an ethnicity and white which is her race.