dev_chieftain (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-05-21 11:23 pm
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-05-21 11:23 pm
Way too much talking about Legend of Korra!
Disclaimer: I'm talking about TV shows to try to take my mind off of the fact that we still haven't been paid. Freaking out a bit.
Also, I stayed up way late last night reading Anita Sarkeesian's master's thesis about female archetypes in television media: I'll Make a Man out of You: Strong Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. While it was pretty darn late to be up when I finished, I found the paper to be interesting and enjoyable to read, and actually appreciated the exploration of Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, since I've always wondered how anyone could call her feminist. This is a case where I was embarrassed to realize I can sometimes tout largely feminine qualities as being undesirable, but also excited to have a way to identify why I have seen more success with female characters who might be identified as 'masculine' than with female characters who are 'feminine' at creating the kinds of characters I think women should be: almost all 'feminine' qualities are considered negative, while qualities that I simply think of as human, such as decisiveness, a moral code and daring when the need to help others arises-- those are often reserved just for people who are considered to be 'masculine'.
Most interestingly, the paper has given me adequate fodder for thought with regards to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I love the show, and have definitely enjoyed the empowerment that it offers to girls and women alike by having an all-female main cast who are each unique and solve problems in their own ways. But even more interestingly, it has constructed a believable and pretty complex matriarchy, in the face of a world where we are so entrenched in patriarchy that matriarchal societies are often only explored in fantasy to be ridiculed for how 'weird' and 'different' they are (An episode of Sliders and an old Popeye cartoon come to mind) by dint of putting women in charge. Things are done a little differently in Equestria because Equestria is a female dominated society. And while I sympathize with my friends who sometimes lament the lack of speaking roles for Big Mac or Spike or other male characters on the show, I feel like the strength of the show is that the male characters don't steal the spotlight from the female ones. I love shows like Kim Possible, for example, but because her sidekick Ron is the charming, funny one who has all the non-generic lines, I often felt like it was his show. Kim's super smart, strong, and athletic, but she seemed to be the brute force much of the time, not the main focus. Her problems were sometimes trivialized because they were so girly (boys boys boys and cheerleading squad, as usual-- only societally approved pastimes for these girls!) and seen as unimportant by other characters including her family, supervillains, and Ron himself at times.
So, while I like Ron, I think the failing of Kim Possible is that he steals the show so much that the title character loses a lot of the spotlight to him. I LIKE that MLP:FiM is about the girls, and that Big Mac will probably never really be as much of the focus of an episode as Applejack; nor Spike over Twilight Sparkle. It's rare and awesome to have that. I want more of it!
Game of Thrones (S2: 8/10): I'm really curious to see how the CGI budget will handle things like Tyrion's plans for alchemist fire. Or if the fire will be CGI. But setting prop boats on fire is wasteful, so I expect CGI.
Legend of Korra (The Aftermath): This episode was pretty awesome, actually. We finally get a bit more Asami-- not as much Asami as I'd like, but enough for us to get a bead on her character.
I actually really liked one major thing here. When her friends doubted her and accused her of pettiness wrongly, despite the fact that she has perfectly legitimate reasons to be concerned, Korra stood her ground and put the ball back in Mako's hands after his exceptionally childish threat not to be friends anymore. There's a war on, guys, in case you haven't noticed. The wealthiest guy in the country's not a bender, and has pretty legit reasons (even prior to the convenient firebender sob-story) to maybe not like benders so much. It's absolutely fair to look into that, even if he'd somehow not turned out to be Evil as Expected.
I liked Asami's (also expected) response to the situation, because it's the first time someone from Camp A has walked over to Camp B in this show. After enjoying A:TLA for having plenty of cool nonbenders around as main characters, I've really felt like the argument in LoK is pretty one-sided. I also liked our shot at seeing post-bendectomy Tahno (is that his name? whatever: generic anime pretty boy villain guy with Aeon Flux eyes, that guy). He seems pretty ill to me. Since all previous encounters with Amon have conveniently not led to any main characters getting bendectomies (I'm calling it that forever now, because it sounds hilarious to me), we haven't really gotten to see how viable Amon's dangerous solution is or isn't.
That said, I'm still thoroughly disappointed by the majority of the characters' bullheaded Walk Right Into Traps-ness. After a show so deeply based around the importance of finding a better solution to punishing a dangerous warlord than simply killing him, where have all the spiritual, cooperative and nurturing aspects of A:TLA gone? It's too convenient to say that Korra simply doesn't have airbending training and thus has no strong spiritual side right now, and I've felt this for a while.
Number one reason why: her first element was water. The most fluid and versatile element is Korra's natural one. She also has healer training, which is in and of itself spiritual. Why the heck is Tenzin the only character on the show who even considers the peaceable, negotiation type option? I mean, it's fine to have the mentor be calm and the hotheaded youth be kind of prone to rush in and get into trouble sometimes, but Tenzin is pretty much the only person who keeps his cool usually, and he's always in the minority. No wonder the equalists don't like benders; most benders are privileged dickwads in the future, apparently.
Considering how far into the show we are, I'm kind of alarmed at how little we've seen of the equalists who toe the line. I'm kind of doubting we're going to get those people, even though they should be the majority of the population, shouldn't they? It's pretty screwed up to have the majority be represented only by a vocal, extreme few. Instead the show is currently portraying a world where the only sympathetic characters we know are benders, and the equalists keep getting represented as a half-assed, bullshit movement that makes moderately reasonable arguments and then progresses straight into crazy, outrageous demands that offer no middle ground resolution, no discussion of the conflict.
To that I say, in the USA that vocal minority represented the people, and we became a country over it. To that I say, in Vietnam, an identical vocal minority was unfairly crushed because of racism. And the plot of the original Transformers cartoon? Isn't it about the proletariat rising up to fight the unfairly wealthy ruling class?
I think it's especially unsettling that Sato turns out to be an equalist and not someone to be reasoned with. By portraying a single wealthy non-bender, it seems as if we're saying that the divide is not classist, but it totally is. Mako and Bolin aren't the norm, even though they're down on their luck benders. Sato is not the norm, even though he's a wealthy non-bender. This imaginary society can and does privilege the superpowered, and Amon's concerns are completely fair and deserve to be considered, even though he's acting as a terrorist. His terrorist actions shouldn't be treated like they automatically invalidate the concerns of other, less extreme equalists.
But, all that rambling aside, the most important thing I wanted to say was, I liked this episode because I got to see more Tenzin fighting, and I love Tenzin like way too much.
Also, having more Lin Beifong is pretty cool. And I can't stress this enough: I really like Asami so far, with the sole exception of her absolutely tepid, standard romance with Mako.
Asami and Korra, however, I'm interested in.
And Bolin. Please continue to beRon Stoppable adorable beyond belief. I like those parts.
Also, I stayed up way late last night reading Anita Sarkeesian's master's thesis about female archetypes in television media: I'll Make a Man out of You: Strong Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television. While it was pretty darn late to be up when I finished, I found the paper to be interesting and enjoyable to read, and actually appreciated the exploration of Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, since I've always wondered how anyone could call her feminist. This is a case where I was embarrassed to realize I can sometimes tout largely feminine qualities as being undesirable, but also excited to have a way to identify why I have seen more success with female characters who might be identified as 'masculine' than with female characters who are 'feminine' at creating the kinds of characters I think women should be: almost all 'feminine' qualities are considered negative, while qualities that I simply think of as human, such as decisiveness, a moral code and daring when the need to help others arises-- those are often reserved just for people who are considered to be 'masculine'.
Most interestingly, the paper has given me adequate fodder for thought with regards to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I love the show, and have definitely enjoyed the empowerment that it offers to girls and women alike by having an all-female main cast who are each unique and solve problems in their own ways. But even more interestingly, it has constructed a believable and pretty complex matriarchy, in the face of a world where we are so entrenched in patriarchy that matriarchal societies are often only explored in fantasy to be ridiculed for how 'weird' and 'different' they are (An episode of Sliders and an old Popeye cartoon come to mind) by dint of putting women in charge. Things are done a little differently in Equestria because Equestria is a female dominated society. And while I sympathize with my friends who sometimes lament the lack of speaking roles for Big Mac or Spike or other male characters on the show, I feel like the strength of the show is that the male characters don't steal the spotlight from the female ones. I love shows like Kim Possible, for example, but because her sidekick Ron is the charming, funny one who has all the non-generic lines, I often felt like it was his show. Kim's super smart, strong, and athletic, but she seemed to be the brute force much of the time, not the main focus. Her problems were sometimes trivialized because they were so girly (boys boys boys and cheerleading squad, as usual-- only societally approved pastimes for these girls!) and seen as unimportant by other characters including her family, supervillains, and Ron himself at times.
So, while I like Ron, I think the failing of Kim Possible is that he steals the show so much that the title character loses a lot of the spotlight to him. I LIKE that MLP:FiM is about the girls, and that Big Mac will probably never really be as much of the focus of an episode as Applejack; nor Spike over Twilight Sparkle. It's rare and awesome to have that. I want more of it!
Game of Thrones (S2: 8/10): I'm really curious to see how the CGI budget will handle things like Tyrion's plans for alchemist fire. Or if the fire will be CGI. But setting prop boats on fire is wasteful, so I expect CGI.
Legend of Korra (The Aftermath): This episode was pretty awesome, actually. We finally get a bit more Asami-- not as much Asami as I'd like, but enough for us to get a bead on her character.
I actually really liked one major thing here. When her friends doubted her and accused her of pettiness wrongly, despite the fact that she has perfectly legitimate reasons to be concerned, Korra stood her ground and put the ball back in Mako's hands after his exceptionally childish threat not to be friends anymore. There's a war on, guys, in case you haven't noticed. The wealthiest guy in the country's not a bender, and has pretty legit reasons (even prior to the convenient firebender sob-story) to maybe not like benders so much. It's absolutely fair to look into that, even if he'd somehow not turned out to be Evil as Expected.
I liked Asami's (also expected) response to the situation, because it's the first time someone from Camp A has walked over to Camp B in this show. After enjoying A:TLA for having plenty of cool nonbenders around as main characters, I've really felt like the argument in LoK is pretty one-sided. I also liked our shot at seeing post-bendectomy Tahno (is that his name? whatever: generic anime pretty boy villain guy with Aeon Flux eyes, that guy). He seems pretty ill to me. Since all previous encounters with Amon have conveniently not led to any main characters getting bendectomies (I'm calling it that forever now, because it sounds hilarious to me), we haven't really gotten to see how viable Amon's dangerous solution is or isn't.
That said, I'm still thoroughly disappointed by the majority of the characters' bullheaded Walk Right Into Traps-ness. After a show so deeply based around the importance of finding a better solution to punishing a dangerous warlord than simply killing him, where have all the spiritual, cooperative and nurturing aspects of A:TLA gone? It's too convenient to say that Korra simply doesn't have airbending training and thus has no strong spiritual side right now, and I've felt this for a while.
Number one reason why: her first element was water. The most fluid and versatile element is Korra's natural one. She also has healer training, which is in and of itself spiritual. Why the heck is Tenzin the only character on the show who even considers the peaceable, negotiation type option? I mean, it's fine to have the mentor be calm and the hotheaded youth be kind of prone to rush in and get into trouble sometimes, but Tenzin is pretty much the only person who keeps his cool usually, and he's always in the minority. No wonder the equalists don't like benders; most benders are privileged dickwads in the future, apparently.
Considering how far into the show we are, I'm kind of alarmed at how little we've seen of the equalists who toe the line. I'm kind of doubting we're going to get those people, even though they should be the majority of the population, shouldn't they? It's pretty screwed up to have the majority be represented only by a vocal, extreme few. Instead the show is currently portraying a world where the only sympathetic characters we know are benders, and the equalists keep getting represented as a half-assed, bullshit movement that makes moderately reasonable arguments and then progresses straight into crazy, outrageous demands that offer no middle ground resolution, no discussion of the conflict.
To that I say, in the USA that vocal minority represented the people, and we became a country over it. To that I say, in Vietnam, an identical vocal minority was unfairly crushed because of racism. And the plot of the original Transformers cartoon? Isn't it about the proletariat rising up to fight the unfairly wealthy ruling class?
I think it's especially unsettling that Sato turns out to be an equalist and not someone to be reasoned with. By portraying a single wealthy non-bender, it seems as if we're saying that the divide is not classist, but it totally is. Mako and Bolin aren't the norm, even though they're down on their luck benders. Sato is not the norm, even though he's a wealthy non-bender. This imaginary society can and does privilege the superpowered, and Amon's concerns are completely fair and deserve to be considered, even though he's acting as a terrorist. His terrorist actions shouldn't be treated like they automatically invalidate the concerns of other, less extreme equalists.
But, all that rambling aside, the most important thing I wanted to say was, I liked this episode because I got to see more Tenzin fighting, and I love Tenzin like way too much.
Also, having more Lin Beifong is pretty cool. And I can't stress this enough: I really like Asami so far, with the sole exception of her absolutely tepid, standard romance with Mako.
Asami and Korra, however, I'm interested in.
And Bolin. Please continue to be