Yeah I Love Manipulating My Friends For My Own Gain, The Gain Is Called "hanging Out", Obtained Via Such

Yeah I love manipulating my friends for my own gain, the gain is called "hanging out", obtained via such cruel tactics as "showing interest in stuff they like" and "being generally complimentary and charming"

It's kind of fucked humans don't have tails. This isn't a dog post, this is a weird freak post. I want a tail like Morgott's that I could swing and hit people with to give them mild concussions.

Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, And Disability

I am disabled. This is something I've talked about a handful of times on this blog and on my Twitter, and anyone who knows me knows I am a disabled man. As a result, while I do enjoy dissecting media and politics, the need to be an advocate for disability issues would have fallen on me to some extent regardless. Disabled folks are often left out of conversations regarding diversity in media, in a continued oversight from able bodied peers.

What does this have to do with the Hellaverse?

Both shows contain at least some small amount of disability representation; specifically, they both have characters that are physically disabled. In Hazbin Hotel this is Vaggie, as she is missing an eye and prior to the finale had lost her wings. In Helluva Boss, the characters would be Fizzarolli, a quad amputee, and the unnamed deaf child in the special. The only character I ever see talked about in regards to their disability by the wider fanbase is the unnamed child, and on a smaller scale in critical spaces I occasionally see remarks on Fizzarolli's disability.

This is a problem.

For as much as fans of one or both shows would love to claim diversity in their shows, the lack of disability representation and the lackluster portrayal of the minimal representation is poor. And I haven't seen any of my fellow critics discuss this, which I feel is an oversight, though I don't fault them for this as there are many problems with both shows and they tend to have their hands full. However, this angle of viewing the shows has been overlooked, which is why I wish to discuss it today.

Firstly, I'd like to specify what I mean when I discuss disability. While the conversation regarding the Hellaverse is primarily centered around physical disability as this is the only form of disability portrayed in the shows, coded or otherwise, disability comes in many different forms. Intellectual disabilities and mental disabilities are just as important for representation in the media as physical disabilities. Among physical disabilities, there's also a difference in visible and invisible disabilities, the latter of which is hardly ever shown in media compared to the former. Ideally all forms of disability would be portrayed equally and with respect, but unfortunately this isn't the case. I also don't expect every show to tackle every demographic at once; this isn't a reasonable request, and to be very clear, my issue with the representation in HH/HB does not come from every single unique experience with disability not being covered, but rather with the narrative the creatives behind the show and the show's fans continue to push: that both shows are diverse and are, in some way, more progressive than other shows.

This isn't the case for many reasons. Fellow critics have gone into depth about the show's lack of representation of women in nuanced roles, the lack of queer women, the racist ways in which the very few characters of colour are presented, the lack of trans representation, and even the way sex and sexuality is presented being rather conservative at times. That isn't the focus of this essay, but I would implore anyone who is reading this who is somehow unaware of the previous issues to seek out essays that talk about those points; Cassidy Whiskey on YouTube has a three-part series that covers a multitude of topics, not just issues of representation, and I would have recommended helluvareceipts on Twitter, but her account has sadly been deactivated. I'm sure there are others, but I'll lose focus if I try to name every single person to go to. If you're willing to trawl through general pettiness in the critical tag (which, let's be real, that is probably how you found this post) you'll find well-worded critiques as well.

Back to the topic at hand. The lack of representation of people with disabilities is already frustrating, but there isn't a complete drought: Vaggie, Fizzarolli, and the unnamed imp child do exist, after all. However, their representation is not just flawed, but even exploitative in some ways.

First we have Vaggie. Aside from the visual of her missing eye and seeing the incident in which she lost that eye, nothing comes of it. She never has to contend with the difficulties that come with impaired sight, and it's never brought up by other characters. In the training scene between her and Carmilla, it's not a factor: instead, her greater flaw in the physical realm when it comes to combat is having longer hair. This is an extreme oversight, which I believe shows that Vivienne and the various writers for the show never actually take into consideration what should be a major element of a character, that being her impaired vision. Furthermore, the loss of her wings isn't even considered at all, with her somehow gaining them back at the end of her training montage with Carmilla. This could have been an excellent vector to discuss physical disability in a coded form, with her wings being a stand in for more traditional forms of limb loss. Still not ideal, as I believe it's better to have forthright depictions of disability over metaphors, but it would have been something. Instead, it's never a factor, and worse, it's effectively cured. As far as representation goes, Vaggie might as well not even count.

That's all that exists for Hazbin Hotel. In Helluva Boss, we have two characters, and I will save the unnamed child for last, because that is where the real issue with the representation is on full display.

So, Fizzarolli. He is a quad amputee and potentially hearing impaired, though the latter is speculated on due to a single scene which I discuss later. Since that scene is the only time it ever comes up, I will focus on his amputee status. He lost his limbs in a fire, something we see on screen. I will disagree with some of my fellow critics in that this scene should have been more detailed; I feel that had the scene shown more of the damage dealt to Fizz's body it would have come across in poor taste, and focusing on the tragic aspect of disability usually ends up feeling like trauma porn in the hands of poor writers, which Vivienne most certainly is. I do not trust her to handle a more detailed scene with grace, especially given her track record (more on that later). It is ultimately for the best that the scene is mostly brushed over, even if it would have been better in the hands of someone with the maturity and sensitivity to cover such a topic for more to be shown in regards to his injuries.

Otherwise, Fizzarolli is mostly fine. He's shown not just surviving but thriving, he has a loving partner (criticisms of the portrayal of said relationship not withstanding) and generally sees success in his life while still having to grapple with the realities of his disability when it comes to his prosthetics being prone to damage and potentially shutting down. I would, in the hands of anyone else, like to see more of this character and what his daily routine looks like as a disabled man.

Unfortunately all the good will built with Fizz comes crashing down when we get to the unnamed imp child in the Fizzarolli special episode. This child is the poster child for virtue signalling. Frankly, it's disgusting how a majority of the fandom seemed to ignore how fetishistic this portrayal was. This is where the real meat of the essay comes in to play.

This unnamed child is given a single scene, and is then promptly forgotten about and never mentioned again. They are introduced as being a fan of Fizz here to view the competition, there is a brief exchange between the two, and then we all move on. And yet this scene was championed as somehow revolutionary or a sign of the top-tier diversity and progressiveness in Helluva, when in reality this type of scene has been done to death. This is tokenism.

One major stumbling block many of the people championing this scene seem to get tripped up on is a very simple question: why was this child a child to begin with? Really, this seems like a simple question, it shouldn't have much thought. Sometimes characters are kids. But within the episode it's clearly shown through multiple different avenues that this is an adult show. The performances are dripping with sexuality, several of the fans of Fizzarolli are there because Mammon sells sex robots of the guy, there is no mistaking that this is something no child should be at, let alone by themselves.

So why was this child a child? Simple: brownie points.

It's a lot more difficult for people to share clips of a wholesome moment from your show if the person Fizz was interacting with was an adult. People are ableist, this is pretty par for the course; as a disabled person I find it generally safer to assume people are ableist before proven otherwise. I can guarantee if this scene were to be between Fizzarolli and a deaf adult fan as opposed to a young child, it would not have been championed as this amazing representation by mostly able bodied fans. And that is by design: if Vivienne genuinely cared about representation, if she truly wanted to show something meaningful to her adult fans in her adult show, she would have had the interaction be with an adult. But that doesn't get her clip shared around on social media. That doesn't get her brownie points for inclusion. It's safe, it's palatable, it's sickeningly wholesome, and it's insulting for that. This is a show for adults, something Vivienne and company is adamant on, and yet they treat their audience like children. As a fan, you should be insulted to have this key-jingling one minute clip presented to you. You should demand more, demand better.

Unfortunately I do not see ever getting better from Vivienne. She has made it very clear she truly does not care about creating art, she really only stumbled into being championed as a paragon for animation because her majority white and able bodied fans saw the inclusion of primarily gay men and thought that was good enough. She does not give a damn about disabled people, and she never will. To expect good disabled representation from her is like expecting good queer representation from a Marvel movie; she is in it for the money, and it just so happens that the inclusion of that scene makes money.

Addendum thoughts that were too long to put into the tags: I would like to make it clear that disability, because it presents very differently, is experienced very differently by many different people. If you felt seen or represented by the disability representation in either show, that's fine, and I don't want you to feel bad for feeling seen. Ultimately disabled people are largely given scraps; I have not once seen someone with my particular physical disability portrayed in media. Sometimes we latch onto things that are subpar or lacking; my criticism of reception to this scene is targeted primarily at able bodied audience members who may be lacking in this perspective and to also champion fellow disabled people to rightfully demand and expect better. Thank you for your time.

I'm throwing my hat into the ring because I've needed to work on expanding my understanding of worldbuilding and deconstructing Hazbin has been (lol) a great exercise for that.

So, first off. Chinesegirl brings up a good point, the difference in approach to mythical creatures to religion-based creatures. Putting aside that some of these mythical creatures are also connected to religion (primarily Celtic pagan religions; this applies to fey as mentioned, but also things like elves and unicorns which weren't mentioned) the difference largely comes from perception. A creature can be anything, it's not going to offend someone if you make a vampire that's not based on Dracula and is more like Edward from Twilight. At least, it won't offend them in a way that matters. Religious iconography however, ESPECIALLY Christian iconography, is considered largely untouchable. There is a reason Jesus and God won't appear in Hazbin; Viv was raised religiously, and there are some lines you Do Not Cross when you're religious. Hell, even if she wasn't religious, she'd probably get enough backlash from evangelicals anyways to not make it worth her while.

So religious iconography and mythos are largely untouchable if you're trying to piss off as few people as possible. But clearly Viv on some level *wants* to piss off people, she is raunchy and edgy after all, so she'll take some liberties. On the face of it this is fine, but like Chai here says, it comes back to inconsistency. It's established at one point, somewhere (please bear with me keeping track of where this information comes from is a headache because... Viv) that sinners have a more monstrous form depending on the severity of the sins they committed. This is, of course, not followed, because Alastor is *right there*. You also have smaller things, such as how angels supposedly can't be hurt except by angelic weapons, but there's multiple instances of that... Not being true?

And while lore that is established is inconsistent, there's also the equally infuriating 'unexplained' lore. I want to make it clear that on the face of it, having something be vague or unexplained is not an inherently bad thing. Sometimes you don't need the show to stop the action to tell you exactly how x power or y gadget works. But imagine for a second if, say, Steven Universe never explained fusion. Like, at all. That would be pretty weird, right? They put enough focus on fusion that it would demand at some point some explanation. For Hazbin, this lack of explanation comes in the form of contracts and deals. They're very much plot important, both are introduced in the pilot (which is canon) and have emphasis placed on them within the series proper. However we aren't ever given an understanding of how these work, or even how they functionally differ. This leads to the audience asking questions like 'Why can't Charlie just free Angel Dust?' or 'Why is it such a big deal Charlie made a deal with Alastor?'. These are things the show should be explaining but just... Isn't, for some reason. My best guess is that Viv suffers from the very common amateur writing flaw of assuming the audience is already on board with your world and characters, but it's also entirely possible there were explanations that were cut for time, or they will be explained in later seasons. I'd argue having an entire season with these two important aspects being completely unexplained is terrible for the plot, but I'm splitting hairs.

Now here's the real meat and potatoes for why the demons and setting of Hell don't work: they don't mean anything. Really, what is lost about Hazbin Hotel if you change the setting to a high-fantasy and swap 'demons' with 'creatures' or the like? What about a sci-fi setting with aliens? You could do functionally the same story, because while redemption is supposed to be the central theme, it barely comes up to the point that you could cut it from the plot entirely and have the show work almost the same. "Oh but how would the trial work?" Mystical orb in a court in a castle for the high fantasy, holograms or some other gadget thing for the sci-fi. "What about Pentious getting redeemed?" Reincarnation, becomes a robot, something like that. "What about Charlie's goals?" Her goals completely shift to a rebellion after episode six, and even then prior to that episode the idea of redemption was always presented as a diplomatic solution to a conflict. Just nix the wording of redemption and have it be, I dunno, equal rights or the like. Or fair treatment of criminals, that works too.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Hell isn't ever used to say something, it doesn't mean anything that they're demons. Hazbin lacks substance, and this is reflected in its world: it's all a veneer of depth but as deep as a puddle. To borrow a metaphor from Scott McCloud, it's a shiny red apple, but when you really try to sink your teeth into it, it's hollow.

In general, it is accepted that there are multiple different ways to interpret mythical creatures such as vampires, werewolves, dragons and fey, as for vampires they can be anything from supernatural, immortal undead like in classic and gothic horror, inhuman abominations that spread like parasites like in The Strain, corpses risen from the grave to feed on the living in folklore or even lovable and sympathetic heroes that are just misunderstood in child-friendly media such as Hotel Transylvania.

With this in mind, I would like to receive an explanation on why Helluvaverse's depiction of hell and demons is dissatisfactory from a worldbuilding standpoint, if other mythical beings and settings can be interpreted in such diverse ways and still work.

I've never had a problem with the fact that Viv's take on demons and Hell isn't always Biblically accurate; I care that she can't keep her worldbuilding straight and picks and discards bits of lore as it suits her.

Writers, take note: Fictional worlds don't have to follow all the rules of the real world, but they do have to follow their own.

i cant stop saying "grisp it"