No classic narratives exist for characters like Korra, and the ones that exist for characters who are not like her? Drop her into them without care or context, and you run headlong into all the double-standards and dangerous stereotypes society created to keep people like her out of those roles in the first place.
It’s not right or fair – putting characters not often allowed to be archetypal heroes into those roles can be fundamentally powerful. It’s why it’s worth working at it. But Book One: Air fails. You need awareness to be subversive, and at this point, the show did not have it. They gave her a plotline designed to differentiate her from Aang – she starts out brash and confident for apolitical reasons – but the show does not consider how that will intersect with her race and gender and how many obnoxious social scripts it will trigger.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2016-10-01 02:23 am (UTC)Here, have an excerpt:
GUH.