Free to anyone who hasn’t become so completely jaded by the racism, transphobia, classism and general pointless nonprofit wankery of the mainstream feminist movement that they’ve given up on the term entirely a good home.

WHY CAN’T I HOLD ALL THESE FEELS

zorascreation:

The Nick.com “Explore Republic City” website describes Korra as “a tomboy with a fiery personality”… 

LOLOLOL

They’re trying so hard to say “Korra’s queer” without having to say it explicitly. Y’know, heterosexism in children’s entertainment and all. 

LOLOLOLOL

SHE’S GAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

LESBIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.

QUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER. 

HOMOSEXXXXXXXXXXXUAL. 

thatofficegifofjimnoddingandpointing.gif

marshmallowmegamama:

it worries/distrubs me how many people are identifying with the equalists (on the legend of korra)—AND using comparisons to malcom X or the black panthers to justify that identification.

because:

1. the nation of islam and the black panthers (among many many other “power” groups) had critiques of violence. they didn’t outright mindlessly advocate LET’S BLOW UP WHITEY! they made the idea of violence more complex. or: we have the right to defend ourselves. a terrifying thing to white people who were used to the idea of lynching black people for crimes as simple as being uppity. but *still a defensive/protective type of violence*.

another example: take a look at how many power groups were either ambivalent or outright condemned the weathermen. because the underground was agressive in their violence—not using it to protect the communities they were supposedly defending—NOR were they using it to advance the needs of the community.—and yet—how much violence against communities of color did the weathermen *justify* because of their tactics?

also: look at how much of the violent rhetoric was turned internal—or: abuse of women was rampant, using the FBI to target each other was not unheard of, using violence to shut up somebody who broke from the group absolutely happened.

i feel like the comparisons of the equalists to the panthers are playing on an uneducated understanding of the critique of violence most power groups had—and really relying on 60s imagery of black men with fists in the air and gun in their hands—in a way that *decontextualizes* that image. it also plays into the conservative right narrative that suggests that the power groups were terrorists because they were all hell bent on killing whitey—aggressive violence—rather than hell bent on protecting their communities FROM whitey—or defensive violence (not sure if that is an actual name, but you know what i mean). it’s a harmful narrative to continue, and it’s not really engaging in a meaningful critique of violence either way.

2. in any conflict, there’s *always* ALWAYS a third (and fourth, fifth, sixth) option, and that option is very much like what tenzin is suggesting (but I want to hear more of before i support—is it “cut and run” or is it “finding another solution” like what aang offered?). and to suggest that oppressed people will ONLY find violent means to fight their oppression again, invisibilizes SO many people who absolutely REQUIRE that we understand them outside of the aggressor/defenseless dichotomy. see: palestinians. probably the majority of palestinians are using non-violent protest as an *extremely* political statement against their oppression—but the only thing USian’s ever hear about are the “terrorists” or the “suicide bombers.” to be sympathetic to those using violence and their reasons is one thing. to suggest that the *natural* response to oppression is violence is to reinforce a narrative that the only choice isreal (as an example) as when it comes to palestinians is to destroy them completely—because they will *always* be in an active state of aggression—because to *be palestinian is to be oppressed*.

3. to suggest that it makes sense that power is an “either/or” thing (either the benders have it or the equalists have it) is to suggest that there is no such thing as true liberation.

5. to suggest that the only choice oppressed peoples have is to be controlled/control is to suggest that oppressed peoples are more invested in “making whitey pay” than they are in “not being murdered.” again—this is a narrative steeped in white supremacy in the US.

6. I promise you—most people of color in the US would *instantly* rebel at Mr. Amon for one reason alone—he calls himself “your leader”—when what has he done to be “our” leader outside of take people’s bending away and scare the shit out of everybody at a social gathering? Do you know how much fucking shit “our leaders” take from us? and these are people who actually walked the walk a long time ago. the only reason we still put up with their asses is *because* they walked the walk a long time ago. What has Amon done to walk the walk? What has he done to show he is accountable to the community of non-benders? Has he gotten anybody jobs? (I ask this while being fully suspicious that he may have given asami’s dad his start up money) Has he gotten better housing for non-benders? Does he live within communities of non-benders? etc. how did he account for the wrath of non-benders who were subjected to the raid by hassok? who maybe lost a family member or had to bail a family member out of jail—and thinks that amon is a trouble maker who is hurting their family?

Our communities have different ways of demonstrating accountability—and declaring yourself The Leader is almost never one of those ways. Just look at how many people rebel at Jval, AM, Courtney M, Jill, etc being “The Leaders” of the feminist movement.

WHat methods has Amon used to gain compliance? Sure—benders are clearly helping him get to the point where he’s at—but just like there were earth benders who married fire benders and didn’t want fire benders to leave their lands (in the comic book, the promise), i promise you that there are non-benders who are (like pema) married to benders or mothers to benders or whatever—and are terrified of amon, and don’t want his type of “liberation” for their children or families EVEN AS THEY FACE OPPRESSION.

7. if amon is willing to take away bending to gain compliance—what is he willing to do to non-benders who don’t obey? this is should be the number one question at all times for anybody who is thinking through violence, violent resistance, etc. if the person who has declared himself “your leader” is willing to shoot your enemy, what is he willing to do to you? if he is willing to rape your enemy, what is he willing to do to you? if he is willing to punish people who he thinks deserve it—what is he willing to do to you when YOU deserve it?

this is why so so so so many power groups in the 60s were about defense and doing it violently if necessary—but were MORE about building strong able loving communities where power existed in multiple complex spaces—this is why intersectionality and a “shifting lens” was formalized into academic lingo. because they recognized that power existed not as “one ring to rule them all” but as a spider web on multiple paths in multiple directions. violent overthrow wouldn’t work because it *didn’t fracture power*—or: it only hits *one* site of power (ex: the US still exists even in a post-911 world).

if your leader is willing to execute your enemy in a stadium in front of everybody AND HE HAS THE POWER TO DO SO—then that means he HAS THE POWER TO DO IT TO YOU TOO. being on “the same side” has never saved anybody from shit.

8. I could go on and on as violence/organizing tactics is an important issue to me.

but i’ll wrap it all up just by saying—for heaven’s sake—feel sympathy for non-benders. you can even feel sympathy for the equalists. but PLEASE. challenge and interrogate the seemingly “natural” response to violence. and most of all, challenge and interrogate the need to understand the equalists through the lens of power movements in the 60s. because without doing that, it is FAR too easy to be sloppy and draw on decontextualized and simply *wrong* narratives about the power movements as a means to satisify our idea of what an oppressed person *should* be (which oddly, usually looks like something on a t-shirt, rather than a tired person who enjoys watching mad men and nail polish and who every once in a while manages to get down and lick some stamps for their local grassroots org), rather than what they ARE.

It feels audacious to add anything to MMM’s commentary, but…i think to straight up draw analogies about US racial dynamics is a boring interpretation. It turns Avatar into the equivalent of all those sci-fi shows where aliens = people of colour. And the creators are too smart to do that, I think; they’re deliberately imagining a world without whiteness — how colonialism, nationalism, etc. would look in a fundamentally different setting, and where the end goal is returning balance to the world rather than the decisive triumph of good over evil. I’m not saying don’t talk about racial parallels in Avatar though; I mean, when you start thinking “so and so represent white people” think about the absence of whiteness in Avatar. It’s got to be more interesting than “equalists are the black panthers” or whatever.

ignore this if it makes no sense, it’s 2 a. m. and i wrote this all without my glasses

zuky:

wildunicornherd:

jhameia:

narrativepriorities:

thesockdolager:

In the weeks since the Korra announcement at Comic Con sparked fulminations anew from Avatar fandom, I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

I haven’t paid much attention to the fandom discourse surrounding the trailer and the various character reveals, so I don’t actually know what people have been saying. For my part, I admit I was sort of surprised by how much the show tips its hand, despite the explicitly teaser-y nature of the first trailer.

I will be very surprised if the initial arc of the show doesn’t go something like this […]

Mr. Sockdolager and I have been talking a lot about the issues of western imperialism that basing the aesthetic on 1920s Shanghai bring up, and he’s articulated my thoughts on the matter (and other matters, oh so many matters) very well. All I would add is that, in addition to possibly ignoring said issues of imperialism and the influence it had on East and Central Asia over the last few centuries, the look and feel of Republic City seems to imply that a “modern” society is automatically one that will look and function more like a western city. Which isn’t just insulting — it also doesn’t make any sense. Where would a “western” influence COME FROM in a world without a Great Britain or America or France or Spain?

I mean, the show hasn’t even aired yet. I’m withholding judgment for now.

I am just CONCERNED is all.

These thoughts are fascinating. Myself I’ve always seen the Western influence in ATLA (yes, I can see how heavily inspired it is by Asian culture, but there are some things in it which are just. not. Asian. And are VERY specific to U.S.American culture) so I’m interested in seeing how they adapt a more syncretized place as Shanghai.

Moreover, to assume that certain ways a “modern” society functions would never have happened without Western influence is still a bit Eurocentric. There have been vast urban spaces in the past; for all we know they operated very similarly to how we see modern society (I’m assuming we’re talking societal infrastructures, not just architecture). Why the hell wouldn’t an Asian society eventually develop traffic lights without Westernization, if circumstances could lead to such a thing? Asia never had a history of warfare that was so tech-driven on a scale like the Fire Nation; I feel this sort of technologically-assisted conflict, given the KIND of tech used by the Fire Nation, is a very Western thing.

There are SO many things in ATLA which are heavily Americanized and, if you think about it from a “must be rooted in Asia” angle, make no sense either (e.g. mannerisms, accents). But it is, for all intents and purposes, an Asian!American show. 

But I hear ya on the female-characters front though, given how the creators had to be TOLD to back off from strong female characters because Nickleodeon thought there were too many of them. 

Have I reblogged this interesting bit of speculation before? Oh well, up again for jhameia’s commentary.

I’m not even going to pretend to be involved with or know anything about ATLA fandom or comic con or whatever you call it but I gotta chime in with jhameia’s observations here. I’d heard so many good things about Avatar: The Last Airbender that I was pretty surprised when I started watching it in the past couple of months at how shallow and un-Asian I found it. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with anybody who loves it! I know it has moved many people, and that’s a good thing. Nobody should be made to feel bad about art they love and find inspiring, so I don’t do that trip. But I’m speaking honestly as a Chinese American student of story, art, craft, and culture, and while I don’t think my opinion particularly matters, it’s just an honest reaction. 

To me, to a Chinese person, ATLA definitely comes off as a white US American story with Asian costumes, sets, and weird accents (ah, the dilemmas of speculative fiction and accents…). There’s Chinese calligraphy to kick off every episode, but the calligraphy is awful. The understanding of the elements is off. The character motivations and arcs are distinctly US American — they constantly do things and react in ways that just don’t sit right if you’re at all immersed in traditional East Asian cultures. Despite the many Chinese costumes and sets, there’s really nothing about the story which feels Chinese to me — or Inuit, for that matter (flying six-legged bison are very cute, but nope). After all, it is a white person’s writing on Nickelodeon, so all this really shouldn’t be a surprise.

Will these observations be accentuated in the upcoming series? Yeah, it makes sense that they very well might, because storytelling success tends to engender self-caricature in the US sequel scene. And no doubt, drawing on 1920s Shanghai like Coco Chanel is a trap of colonialism and exotic appropriation. On the other hand, it’s certainly too early to say, so maybe the producers will surprise us all with a move into a more mature frame.

*goes off on highly personal tangent*

epiphany! it’s not so much half-Asian (hybrid, mix)
as meta / reflected / mirror / secondary / hrön
(writing this with Borges in the next tab)
removed one level of reality (authenticity) from the Real Thing
not so much Asian as about Asian
try to touch me, your hand will go right through me
look away from me, I’m no longer there!

So in a way Avatar is the perfect series for meta-people like me…

*dashes off quick as a deer down forking paths*

jhameia:

narrativepriorities:

thesockdolager:

In the weeks since the Korra announcement at Comic Con sparked fulminations anew from Avatar fandom, I’ve been thinking a lot about it.

I haven’t paid much attention to the fandom discourse surrounding the trailer and the various character reveals, so I don’t actually know what people have been saying. For my part, I admit I was sort of surprised by how much the show tips its hand, despite the explicitly teaser-y nature of the first trailer.

I will be very surprised if the initial arc of the show doesn’t go something like this: Having mastered three of the four elements, Korra must travel to Republic City to learn Airbending from Tenzin, the only living master of the element. Never comfortable with her role as the Avatar (but certainly comfortable with the bending power it affords her) she either does not take her airbending studies particularly seriously, or avoids them entirely, instead becoming involved in the glamorous world of Pro Bending, probably in disguise. It’s there that she meets the brothers Mako and Bolin. Her efforts to build an identity on her own terms are cut short when she’s targeted either by the anti-bending Chi Blockers or rivals within Pro Bending, which targeting causes run-ins with the metal-bending police of Republic City. Korra must reconcile her desire for life on her terms with her responsibilities as Avatar in order to both master airbending and confront the threat the Chi Blockers represent.

This all sounds fine, but the devil is in the details.

What was so constantly surprising about the original series was just how much scrutiny it could stand up to. Most shows—especially genre shows—require huge amounts of compartmentalization on the part of even moderately invested viewers. Depending on your personal priorities, you have to ignore sloppy worldbuilding, terrible sexual politics, terrible gender politics, inconsistent characterization, or (most frequently) some combination of all of those, in order to “enjoy” a thing you’re watching.

A:TLA, miraculously, almost never required you to ignore anything in order to enjoy it. It was not a perfect show, but it was unbelievably good, so much better than most television of its type (that is to say, serialized genre narratives) that comparisons are depressing.

I have no doubt that Korra will be good. I will watch every episode. What I don’t know is how much to allow myself to assume or even to hope that it will be good as A:TLA.

Here are the kinds of things I worry about, when I worry I’m letting my expectations get too high:

• Will there be important, capable female characters besides Korra? Will there be many of them? (Off the top of my head, A:TLA had Katara, Toph, Suki, Mai, Ty Lee, Azula.)
• When Mike & Bryan cite “1920s Shanghai” as an inspiration for the setting, do they understand that Shanghai in the 1920s looked and felt a certain way thanks to the legacy of European colonialism? Do they consequently see how incorporating “1920s”-flavored costume and architecture aesthetics into the design of their show is thoughtless and moderately nonsensical in a way A:TLA almost never was? How thoroughly are they thinking these design choices through? Do they understand that the specific shapes of grandfather clocks and traffic lights and fire hydrants and motor cars and overcoats and police uniforms come from specific historical contexts, and that these contexts have meaning?
• Does M&B’s decision not to rehire the writing staff suggest they’ve learned important lessons from said staff, or rather that their privileging of Art over Story has intersected with their increasing creative freedom in a way that will adversely impact the narrative? To put the question another way: Are the characters going to be as obvious and straightforward and borderline cliche as their designs indicate? E.g., is the tall, stylish Mako going to be the smooth, cocky ladies man, with the stockier Bolin the jokier, less secure one (who’s inevitably jealous of his brother’s savoir-faire?) Is that all there will ever be to those characters?

And of course I feel like a joykilling asshole for harboring these misgivings, given that however it shakes out, Korra is almost certainly going to be the best and most ambitious animated show on US TV when it airs, and represents the continuation of a series so absurdly, improbably great, I sometimes cannot believe it actually exists.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Mr. Sockdolager and I have been talking a lot about the issues of western imperialism that basing the aesthetic on 1920s Shanghai bring up, and he’s articulated my thoughts on the matter (and other matters, oh so many matters) very well. All I would add is that, in addition to possibly ignoring said issues of imperialism and the influence it had on East and Central Asia over the last few centuries, the look and feel of Republic City seems to imply that a “modern” society is automatically one that will look and function more like a western city. Which isn’t just insulting — it also doesn’t make any sense. Where would a “western” influence COME FROM in a world without a Great Britain or America or France or Spain?

I mean, the show hasn’t even aired yet. I’m withholding judgment for now.

I am just CONCERNED is all.

These thoughts are fascinating. Myself I’ve always seen the Western influence in ATLA (yes, I can see how heavily inspired it is by Asian culture, but there are some things in it which are just. not. Asian. And are VERY specific to U.S.American culture) so I’m interested in seeing how they adapt a more syncretized place as Shanghai.

Moreover, to assume that certain ways a “modern” society functions would never have happened without Western influence is still a bit Eurocentric. There have been vast urban spaces in the past; for all we know they operated very similarly to how we see modern society (I’m assuming we’re talking societal infrastructures, not just architecture). Why the hell wouldn’t an Asian society eventually develop traffic lights without Westernization, if circumstances could lead to such a thing? Asia never had a history of warfare that was so tech-driven on a scale like the Fire Nation; I feel this sort of technologically-assisted conflict, given the KIND of tech used by the Fire Nation, is a very Western thing.

There are SO many things in ATLA which are heavily Americanized and, if you think about it from a “must be rooted in Asia” angle, make no sense either (e.g. mannerisms, accents). But it is, for all intents and purposes, an Asian!American show. 

But I hear ya on the female-characters front though, given how the creators had to be TOLD to back off from strong female characters because Nickleodeon thought there were too many of them. 

Have I reblogged this interesting bit of speculation before? Oh well, up again for jhameia’s commentary.