Korra is a privileged white savior shit, so eat my nutsack.

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

missturdle: jhenne-bean: fangirlingforeverz: mind-the-neurogasm: She is a sheltered child unfortunate enough to have grown up thinking bending is the shit just because she’s the avatar. She is like Buddha, sheltered all her life but now embarking on a spiritual journey (hence, how she lacks her “spiritual side” of bending). At this point in the story, like Buddha, she has encountered the poor and oppressed for the very first time, and doesn’t quite understand how they could be like that. I’m glad that the people with sense are finally coming out! Excuse me while I build a fort out of the above quote and this. SURPRISE: THE NARRATIVE IS BASED OFF OF AN ASIAN NARRATIVE AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHITENESS OR COLONIALISM. Did Riley realize that in calling Korra white she made A:TLA/TLOK all about whiteness? Like, was it her intention to erase Korra’s being non-white and having a non-white narrative? I find this pretty ironic. I find it ironic that you’re addressing the “identity” and “narrative” of a character made entirely by white people with a white voice actress. Incredibly ironic and also sad. Also it’s hilarious that you missed the imperialistic connotations of Korra and benders and the demonization of the oppressed class with all your babble on how Korra is totes like Buddha.

I’m really addressing the “narrative” of the show, which was admittedly created by White people. (Is this the part where I get to discuss orientalism in AtLA? CAUSE I WILL IT’S MY FUCKING FAVE THING TO DISCUSS.))

But before I go there:

I find it hilarious that you erase the Buddhism/Avatar/reincarnation angle of the show, and rather than acknowledge the parallels to civil rights movement (in America, as it pertains to the Black American/American minority movement vs. White people) you choose to overwrite the Asia-based narrative with your White vs PoC reading. There aren’t Black people in Atla/Lok, nor are there White people; it is the characters meant to be read as Pan-Asian that have agency, and it’s interesting that you’ve staked a claim in the discourse and really smeared your reading in as if it’s the only legitimate way to view this narrative. (Interesting, but also “ironic and sad.”)

((Just not sure if overwriting a real Asian narrative (even if it’s being utilized by TEH WHITES!1!) with American history (yes I know it’s being aired in America but bear with me here) is an entirely unproblematic stance to take. Just saying. ))

And you’re right. The colonialism point should have been more clarified: White colonialism in America. There we go! Plus I think you forget that I, for the most part, agree with you about the voice actress soooo I’ll just disregard that bit.

As for the White creators!

Actually. I’ll copy paste my essay and put it under a cut.

I'mma consider Avatar; the Last Airbnder (and LoK, I suppose) from a critical perspective, and analyze whether or not the series serves as an orientalist piece.





I am of the belief that orientalism in the philosophical sense and in the “media” sense might be two different beasts entirely. And I’m going to write from that perspective. In the most technical artistic sense, orientalism refers to -according to the ever knowledgeable Wikipedia- “a term used especially in art for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures

in the West by writers, designers and artists.” With this definition in mind, the A;tLA is undeniably an work of “orientalism.” Considering Said’s notion from Orientalism, however, the distinction swings in favor of Bryke and co. One aspect of Said’s Orientalism that is subverted by A;tLA is that of latent orientalism. Latent orientalism as described by Said is “an almost unconscious (and certainly untouchable) positivity” about what the Orient is, both as “a system of thought” and “a scholarship.” In essence, the idea is static, concrete, and uncontested; there is only one concept of the Orient presented (backwards, different, eccentric/weird, sensual, debateably feminine, etc.) Furthermore, Said goes on to say that orientalism “…deals principally not with the correspondance obetween Orientalism and Orient, but with the internal consistency of Orientalism and its ideas about the Orient…despite or beyond any correspondance, or lack thereof, with a ‘real’ Orientalism.” Basically, the Orient must be presented as prototypical in the Occident’s eyes. The values of the East have to be presented within a context of -and thus, compared against- the Western world to perpetuate the very idea of the alien “other.” The views must be binary; that is to say, there is an Orient and Occident, a them and us superior and inferior, progressive and backwards, etc. That said, Avatar; the Last Airbender hardly subscribes to such a dichotomy. The television series was decidedly set in a Pan-Asian world, based on a number of Asian (East and South), First nations, and in a few instances, Polynesian cultures. This,

on a socio-political level, bucked the very idea that a White male is the all accessible, relatable characterm and that content centered on the White (aka “default”) experience would be more widely accepted, as well as more marketable than people of color. No Eurocentric settings or Anglo-worlds (or characters) were present to create a dichotomy on a wider scale within the narrative.

That is to say, that the characters, in all their Pan-Asian glory, are presented as the basis, rather than the exception. There was no “Oriental” character; no single, generalizing image of “the other.” One important characteristic is the fact that A;tLA was not ambiguous in its portrayal of rarely celebrated cultures; viewers were presented with Asian cultures in a way that suggested they too could be the norm.

The tone was appreciative, rather than mocking, stereotyped, or exoticized, othering, or appropriative.

Likewise, having worked with both the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) and the East West Players -both advocacy groups laud the series, but loathe the adaptation- I would argue that Paramount and M.Night Shymalan’s take on A;tLA perpetuated an orientalist mindset, in essence. In the show, good and evil were never color-coded for your convenience beyond anything but clothing -and even then, things grew intentionally muddy. In the film however, the only nations that have been portrayed as righteous and heroic –the Air and Water nations- were played by White actors, while the villainous, genocidal nation is played by the “brown people; Indian, Middle Easter, Maori, and a “brown Italians”. (M. Night’s words, not mine.) It is interesting to note that of the Water Tribe casting, the Northern tribe –the more advanced, regal, “civilized” tribe of the two- was cast entirely White, while the Southern tribe, a war torn, devastated, “under construction” tribe was filled with Inuit actors, save the main characters Sokka and Katara, who were White.

T

his choice serves as a good example of the ethnocentrism that is inherent within Said’s concept of orientalism

.

Unlike the show.

Another example to consider is the treatment of writing within the world of Avatar; Bryke enlisted the help of a professor of Chinese calligraphy to ensure realism and respect, while the “writing within the film adaptation, where a real-life language was replaced by an imaginary one, bastardized with lines and squiggles as a stand in. (The writing of the “other” is presented as backwards, intelligable, and foreign.) Reading the casting as it was in The Last Airbender, the conflict between the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation no longer takes place in the specific, plot oriented clash of nations as it was originally. Their battle becomes one of Whiteness versus Otherness, the evil Oriental who belongs to no real nationality, but rather exists in an imaginary state embodied by the opposite of every good and right White and Western ideal. Basically, a foreign face was given to the enemy, reinforcing the correctness of the good guys -in this case, Western/White- hegemonic values.

These concepts as perpetrated in the film go along swimmingly within the scope of latent orientalism.





The show, however, does not.

TL;DR:

Ultimately, I feel that Avatar; the Last Airbender truly subverts the main trappings of orientalism. Yes, it’s written by two White dudes, and there is power in who is creating the work, but there is

also

power in who is the subject (PoCs), who is viewing it, and how it is presented.





Likewise, the show is -pretty much- in opposition to the dominant hegemony of White CisBros everywhere, so yeah, I think I’ll give them some points.

(Source: lifeafteranime)