Twitter user claims Avatar: the Last Airbender would be called “woke propaganda” if it was released today

submitted by kingc-way245The Blackface of White Supremacy from mobile.twitter.com

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[–]lunarstrain 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Toph never acted like the "disabled girl", she was always cracking jokes about being blind, often at other people's expense. She'd probably be offended if you referred to her like that.

Plus, her blindness is a totally reasonable in-universe explanation for her awesome abilities, with her learning such advanced Earth bending from moles. It's not some shitty pandering or barely thought out plot point.

The difference is Toph has depth, doesn't take herself too seriously, and isn't invincible.

[–]CreditKnifeMan 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Toph never acted like the "disabled girl", she was always cracking jokes about being blind, often at other people's expense. She'd probably be offended if you referred to her like that.

The creator planned Toph as a man...

..so maybe it was early woke propaganda.

A theater performance in the show had both the avatar cast as a girl, and Toph as a man.

The sequel is even more woke, but they're both decent shows.

It's somewhat subtle. Which is crucial for high-quality social programming propaganda.

It's tame by today's standards.
Especially Netflix, which can't create a show without heavy homosexual innuendo, or outright homosexually active characters.

[–]lunarstrain 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

The creator planned Toph as a man...

..so maybe it was early woke propaganda.

I'm not a big enough fan to follow the behind the scenes stuff so I'm not sure if you're just joking about the theater scene or if she was originally going to be a male character, but...

Could have just been a natural change during the creative process, y'know? Parents tend to be more protective over their daughters which fits well with her being so severely sheltered. Just a random guess, no idea what their actual inspiration was, may have been for sex diversity's sake (pandering) after all. Never liked the school of thought where you /have/ to include an equal amount of girls in your main cast.

At the very least, I'd say she's a well written tomboy character and I'm glad they didn't try to make her gay in Korra. I never liked The Legend of Korra very much, the writing sucked comparatively, didn't even finish it.

[–]CreditKnifeMan 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I never liked The Legend of Korra very much, the writing sucked comparatively, didn't even finish it.

It emphasized the physical combat abilities from the main characters.

It was written for male main characters.

[–]LtGreenCo 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's because the entertainment media of the past wasn't obsessed with representation and when you saw a racially or culturally diverse cast it was an artistic choice and had nothing to do with pushing a woke narrative. Back then I didn't have to wonder if a movie or show was written by a bunch of blue-haired multi-pronouned interns with an agenda. But these days I do because it happens so often now.

[–]FlyingKangaroo 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Diversity doesn’t mean it’s woke. It’s actually a good use of diversity, without pushing it and political correctness. It’s just good because it’s part of the story. Not because the show creators wanted to push 1000 sexualities and act like all non-white people are saints and being white must be equated with being a Nazi.

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yep, the woke would consider a cast made up of 100% black transwomen diverse. They don't use words the same way as everyone else.

People forget that diversity was originally pushed because intellectual diversity was shown to help businesses make more money, not because it's good for individuals and not because of representation.

[–]Haylstorm 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Which makes sense, different people might approach things from a novel angle. If everyone is thinking the same you might not get that angle and you could miss out.

[–]LyingSpirit472 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Well, considering that the backstory to the plot of Avatar was "everyone was at peace until one group of people took hold and being in that group makes you literally, inherently evil and nothing you do can change it"...they KIND had a point?

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think they were just copying WWII in Asia where the Japanese went around invading everyone since the bad guys in that show seemed based on the Japanese and the other guys the Chinese.

I don't recall any kind of racial absolutism in that show, I think the whole plot from the end was the bad king was using propoganda to brainwash his people, I think several characters from there ended up joining the heroes.

The whole show was very childish and the humor was cringe, but it got it's Kung Fu movie tropes well and the basic plot was surprisingly compelling for a kids show.

[–]Haylstorm 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I mean it also seemed like a lot of them travelling through the fire nation was them finding out that they were just normal people.

Like they made friends and there are some fairly major characters from the fire nation on the side of good. You even have minor ones earlier like Jeong Jeong who tried to teach Aang firebending. Hell even Mai and Ty Lee changing sides could be argued as being able to change.

[–]LyingSpirit472 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Granted. Ultimately, it's part of "the show wasn't woke, but the fans of it's racism, er, wokeness clouded it until it WOULD be (the Netflix run showed that they took the lessons said there and turned it to "fire nation= white people, white people bad, ergo fire nation BAD.")

[–]Haylstorm 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It saddens me a bit tbh. The message in the show overall wasn't bad. Fairly well rounded characters for a kids show (I mean who didn't love Iroh?) and things like Zuko's redemption arc were really great when I was watching as a kid. Frankly it seems more against the show's message to call a nation bad when they spent a lot of that last season really trying to show how normal the fire nation were. Even small humanising moments like one of the soldiers happy that his boss remembered his birthday seemed to me to push that "they're just normal people" narrative.

Hell even the fire nation that believed that they were helping other nations felt kinda realistic with how that was portrayed. I mean the episode where Aang is in school showed that the "we're the best and we're helping everyone else" being pushed on them from a young age made sense. Showing the kids as normal and wanting to have fun def felt like that's what they wanted to push. It's not the nation that's bad, it's was bad leadership that you'd be unable to question (look what happened to Zuko when he tried and he was the crown prince ffs, can't really imagine anyone else even wanting to challenge it knowing that's the response you'd face). To dilute that always feels like they're not understanding the message in the first place.

Turning it into fire nation bad does it a disservice imo. That and it shows they don't understand it properly. Not saying I do but the whole last season def felt like that's what they were getting at. Bad leadership that people couldn't challenge, not bad people. Other than Ozai and Azula being crazy lol.

[–]jet199 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A fantasy series set across the entire world will always have multiple races and cultures. That's never been called woke.

In fact all those cultures are pretty insular, nationalist and made up distinctive tribes.

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

nah

[–]ShekelPa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They do not even know what woke is, yet they are as woke as can be.