I knew almost nothing about this show going in, but I enjoyed The Last Airbender so I decided to check it out. I heard it had problems, but no one told me it was straight-up fascist propaganda.
What I'm about to rant about isn't me reading too much into it, because the points they're trying to make are about as subtle as a horse pissing, and this is a popular franchise that all ages watch and are influenced by.
Republic City is clearly supposed to be America.
The Equalists are clearly supposed to stand-in in for a leftist group fighting against oppression. Their posters are even designed like leftist posters.
The Equalists are disadvantaged minorities, similar to MLKs civil rights movement or the woman's suffrage movement. Except in this show, these people have harder lives because they are born without superpowers, and because of this they are jealous and bitter of those who do have superpowers and want to take everyone's powers away because of jealousy.
This is akin to saying minorities aren't really oppressed, they're just genetically inferior and not 'special'. Korra straight up tells an equalist that they want to be whiny and oppressed. Our Hero, everyone.
Can't wait for the episode where Korra tells someone who can't afford cancer treatment that they're just jealous of healthy people. Hell, considering how hamfisted the Equalists as an expy for leftists is, this is like saying that leftists are jealous of healthy people and want to make everyone sick.
This isn't subtle, the way this show misrepresents the left is straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
Even if you can look past the pro-fascist morals, the show is just boring. Gone is the adventure and unique fantasy setting of The Last Airbender. The show now spends most of the time focusing on a boring love triangle and an uninteresting sport. It was actually this that made me stop watching because it was so slow-paced and the characters were so unrelatable/unlikable.
I mean, The Last Airbender could be lib as shit sometimes (the Ba Sing Se episode comes to mind) but it at least was a fun adventure about defeating a fascist empire. In The Last Airbender, the hero wins by taking away the superpowers of the leader of the evil empire. Making the pro-power, pro-empire morals that The Legend of Korra is trying to put forward seem even more hypocritical and hollow.
Another thing that sucks is that I've seen most criticisms of this show are hand-waved away as people just not liking it because Korra is a "strong female lead".
Neo-Liberals hiding fascism behind progressivism, name a more iconic duo.
Anyway, that was me shitting on a show about 10 years too late, but fuck it. I had no idea it was that bad.
I hate how Amon is given a sympathetic backstory that gets no exploration at all. He's supposedly orphaned by benders who his parents couldn't fight.
That's legit what happens to Katara before the start of TLA. But instead of exploring that trauma, the story focuses on what it feels like to bend and how losing that is a profound loss.
It could've been a cool exploration on the themes of powerlessness and coping with that, but instead it's just that benders are just better and if you don't bend then you need to get out of the way.
In stories, it's easy to assume you'd be a character with powers or knowledge, but the reality is more likely to be you're the one on the outside of power in these fictional settings
Isn't it a straight up lie also? Like Amon is actually a bender himself just doing shit for power and tricking the gullible moronic commoners?
It's more complicated he's a bender himself whose dad was abusive about bending by bullying his younger brother who was less powerful than them. And he does actually believe in what he's saying
the show however ignores the sympathetic parts of this backstory
That seems even worse somehow, at least if hes just power hungry that makes sense in this dumb setup they did, but if he genuinely believes in what hes talking about wouldnt he just shape the movement to allow sympathetic benders to be part of it?
Hate when you can just obviously detect the hands of the authors making their characters do dumb shit and not think properly so that their intended story works no matter what.
Pretending to be a non bender does make sense as his dad was a wanted mob boss and not being known as a bender helps conceal his identity and avoid attention.
The main way the show ignores this sympathetic backstory is by narratively treating this kind hearted character who wants to help people weaker than himself as a power hungry monster. Despite the obvious fact that if you are power hungry you would cater to the interests of the powerful not the powerless
:parenti:
Reminds me of my lib relative in Seattle saying something disapproving about how Kshama Sawant "is all about her self and just wants to build a career with her 'antics'" or something like that.
I didn't want to explain how a socialist party operates, but now she's fucking retired lol. Idk running for a state office isn't totally out of the question which would disprove my point, but it's still nonsense to call out a political leader who isn't a fucking empty suit careerist lib over nothing like that.