Team Valkyrie FTW

The Legend of Korra premiered Saturday and naturally the fans are all abuzz with fan art and other ways to celebrate the show. A recent Tumblr blog by Where’s The Beef? did a great job talking about a problem that is prevalent in the fanbase, and other fandoms that have characters of color: whitewashing.

Whitewashing — or racebending as it’s referred to in the Avatar fandom — is taking characters who are non-white, and making them lighter-skinned or just flat-out Caucasian. This was seen in the movie version of Avatar: The Last Airbender with a predominantly white cast playing Asian characters.

When you get your own slang term for whitewashing because of a terrible movie but it sticks around for fan art, you’re being a bad fandom. There are people out there who consider themselves huge fans and dedicate their time and energy in artwork, only to think (whether knowingly or not) “This character is just too dark-skinned for my tastes, better lighten them up”. This is a problem and it helps explain why we got a casting call looking for white actors for Asian characters.

As WTB brings up the importance of role models and the effect such figures have on everyone, especially children in regards to self-worth. He talks about how there are people out there who already hate the color of their own skin, how they don’t feel good enough when compared to white or lighter-skinned people. How it’s important that the media positively portrays more characters of color, so children have one less system against them in regards to their skin. Whitewashing a character reinforces this and it should make everyone furious.

WTB mentions how it could very well be that the artists of such whitewashed fan art don’t even realize how racist their actions are, but he makes it clear: unintentional racism is still racism. He goes on to explain the reciprocated feelings between society and the media:

And that’s the problem here: unconscious racism IS STILL RACISM. What lesson do you think Hollywood is taking away from this whole debacle? The sad truth of the matter is that the reason so many racial stereotypes exist in Hollywood is that part of appealing to a wide audience means appealing to their prejudices, whether those prejudices are conscious or not. They’ve learned that if they don’t cater to all our preconceived notions, their movies won’t make money.

He’s right, and I can’t say it any better than he already did, so go read what he said. Pass it around, reblog it, post it where you can. His message is right and it should be widely known.

SPOILER ALERT: This whole post is filled with spoilers on The Legend of Korra, so if you don’t want anything ruined you best go on and get.

This past weekend the people at Korra Nation gave us the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra television series (which are sadly now gone since they were only up for the weekend only). This is the follow-up series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, a brilliant show on Nickelodeon for both kids and adults. Well I watched Korra and well…

Oh my god, this was such a good way to bring us in. The show had us get Korra’s personality the moment we saw her burst through a wall bending Earth, Water, and Fire saying “I’m the Avatar! You gotta deal with it!” You know this is a young woman who does not take crap from anybody.

Korra is a strong, stubborn, powerful person and she knows it. She is a 17-year-old who wants to experience the world but has so many responsibilities she feels tied down. She knows she has power but also is terrible at the spiritual aspects of her role in the world. She fights with her teacher but will go out and protect shopkeepers. Korra questions and defies authority but does try to follow the rules as best she can so she’s a great role model as much as she is fun to watch.

Every introduction of a character gives us plentiful information about them. Seeing Tenzin and family fly in (on a Sky Bison!) and we already receive a plethora of information.

Tenzin is a somewhat patient if tired man who has a handful for a family. His wife Pema is exhausted trying to raise three airbenders, with another child (possibly a bender as well) on the way. Jinora is the quiet eldest daughter who is smart enough to know when her father pleas for her to not be as difficult a teen as Korra, that she makes no promises. Ikki is the middle child and chatty as can be with an inquisitive nature to match. Finally there’s Meelo and… that boy aint right, and I love him for it, the kid is nuts. This is all stuff we get in the first few minutes of meeting them. That is some swift storytelling there, folks. Kitara shows up to tease long-time fans about Zuko’s mother, that is such a sick burn to the audience.

We get a new animal best friend to love in the Polar-Bear-Dog, Nana, this is a toy that will sell like mad since who wouldn’t want a bear-dog hybrid that you could ride around on? The music for this show is amazing as it was described as “if China had developed jazz music”. The animation is top notch with crazy amounts of detail given to the setting of Republic City and the fights, both bending and mundane.

Oh my sweet mercy, the fighting in this show. In the original show we had 4 martial arts represent the 4 kinds of bending, now that pro-bending (a competitive sport version of bending) is being introduced we are being shown a Mixed-Martial-Arts evolution to bending styles that give the world more depth and logic. It’s also a fictional sport I found myself actually interested in.

We also get two characters from this end with the brothers Mako, the moody loner firebender and Bo Lin, the wise cracking ladies man earthbender. There is trouble a brewing in Republic City with the Equalists forming with an Anti-Bender movement on the rise and with bending organized crime, it’s not too hard to see their points.

Okay, so now I’ve talked about what the show is but let me get to why this show is awesome. This was a long shot, pretty much everyone was expecting this to not live up to the monumentally high expectations. Yet it did, these characters we meet feel like real people. You have probably met Tenzin and his family (I’m pretty sure I was Meelo at that age), Korra is someone you’ve probably argued with and still wished to be friends with, Bo Lin has probably hit on you or a friend of yours. These characters are new yet instantly recognizable and lovable. You want to watch these people develop and carry on in this world, you want to watch them succeed and feel bad when they fail.

The world we once knew is altogether different in Republic City but it still feels familiar to us, we really have just moved forward in time. You want to explore the city, try the food, dance to the music, and buy stuff from the shops. YOU WANT TO WATCH AND PLAY PRO-BENDING AND THEN GET SAD THAT THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. The game looks so cool and I can’t believe they made a fictional sport enjoyable and still make sense.

The show has a great lead who happens to be female, a cast of characters that are a variety of ethnic (fictional with factual basis) backgrounds, and a strong sense of characters and story.

The Legend of Korra was wonderful and I cannot wait for more episodes to come our way. The show premieres April 14th on Nickelodeon.

A new Tumblr showed up just a few days ago and I’m already a big fan. Feminist Harry Potter by Kristie L Yandoli, takes images from the film versions of the Harry Potter series and either has characters discussing feminist theory or explores the feminism or lack thereof from characters and situations. It’s at its best when it is pointing out problems or showing how the series shines, the one above and the one of Hagrid (go check out the site to see, I don’t want to take away any traffic the site deserves) made me  smile. Calling it “the Wizarding World” is pretty indicative of how male dominant the magic world is, can’t wait to see more.

Note: This post is nothing but spoilers for the Once Upon a Time episode titled “Fruit from the Poisonous Tree.”

Okay, so, hopefully by now everybody’s at least heard of Once Upon a Time. If not, it’s a show on the televisions where all the fairytale characters of McEurope are in a small town in Maine and they don’t know they’re fairytale characters, and the evil queen is now the mayor and ruining their lives. Enter Emma, the hero, who’s going to fix all the things.

I like this show. I like it a lot. To itty bitty bits and pieces. It’s strong female characters dukeing it out. It treats Emma’s decision to give up her child for adoption with a lot of respect, especially compared to how that shit usually runs. She doesn’t regret her choice, she knows it was for the best, and she’s not overcome by her ovaries upon seeing her child. And when Cinderella wants to keep her baby rather than give it up, Emma’s all about that too, because she’s like, hey, it’s your choice, and she doesn’t push her own choices on others. Like, for reals, wins all around there.

However.

However.

However.

I’ve talked in the past about liking problematic things. This is an example of that. I like OUaT for the things it does right. But Jesus Christ on a cracker it does some things wrong, some things which I really can’t ignore, and I kind of feel compelled to talk about.

So from the first episode, I noticed there was just the one person of color in the entire town of Storybrooke. Just the one dude, whose name I didn’t catch at first. “Well, whatever,” I thought, “good job being like all other TV.” Then eventually I caught his name: Mr. Glass. And I realized, oh fuck the only person of color in Storybrooke is the only non-humanoid character in Enchanted Forest that we meet. He’s the magic mirror.

Yikes. Okay. Well. That’s pretty crap. But he’s kind of a minor character (another problem) so maybe this’ll be the end of vastly problematic elements concerning Mr. Glass. Right?

Well then Mr. Glass got a whole episode unto himself, and oh holy lord.

So, okay, first off, in the Enchanted Forest, he’s a djinn, and check that picture out, he’s totally exotic amirite? Because people of color are totally exotic. But that’s not the worst of it. He’s a magical wish-granting djinn who is there to help others on their journey. Do not let this shit slip past you: The only black man in the entire Enchanted Forest is quite literally a Magical Negro. Who is there to grant three wishes to his master. I’m not making this shit up, folks. I’m not even digging for it. This isn’t subtext. This is text.

And look at that outfit. Do I even have to say it?

Okay so Kingy McLeopold gives the djinn his freedom (sure) and did the djinn ever get a name? I don’t think so. I think he was called “Genie” the whole time. So okay, Genie is taken to the castle to live with the king while he sorts out his new life, and meets the Evil Queen Regina and is instantly in love with her. And despite the fact that King Leopold did him a real solid on setting him free, he immediately sets his sights on wooing Regina because, you know, black men loves to go after dem white wimmin?

Ugh.

So then Regina manipulates Genie into killing the king for her — and I’m not going to touch the part where Regina seems to control most of the men in her life through sex, nope — and then totally pins it on him, revealing Genie to be both dumb and led exclusively by his idiot love for Regina instead of any sliver of common sense. You’d think an all-powerful mythical being who’d lived through many ages of man and saw how grasping for selfish wishes always lands badly for others might stop and think. But nope. Because that would be inconvenient to the plot, and furthermore it would give Genie some depth, and we can’t have that. And ultimately, when he discovers he’s been manipulated and betrayed? He wishes to be by her side for all time.

Really, dude? Really? Give the black man some freedom and he gonna come up ins, murderin’ you, stealin your wimmin, and then being totally loyal and effectively enslave himself to the traitorous white lady?

Furthermore, the fact that Regina was kind of bitchy all along in this episode is pretty bland, and a real missed opportunity. The Regenie lovestory could have panned out interestingly, and instead, it was this. But that’s kind of an aside to the massive piles of racefail up above.

So, yeah. Yikes. I mean, yikes. I’m a little sad I haven’t seen anyone really calling this out. I mean, I really had to dig to see if anybody even agreed that there was a problem here.

I like Once Upon a Time, but goddamn is it problematic when it comes to race.

So this is pretty cool. I hope these directors get to direct some major films, because that would be awesome and stuff.

• U.S. Directing Award for Documentary Film: Lauren Greenfield, director of The Queen of Versailles
• U.S. Directing Award for Dramatic Film: Middle of Nowhere, director Ava DuVernay
• U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, directed by Alison Klayman
• Special Jury Prize: Dramatic: Smashed producers Andrea Sperling and Jonathan Schwartz
• U.S. Documentary Editing Award to: Detropia, edited by Enat Sidi
• World Cinema Screenwriting Award, Dramatic: Young & Wild, written by Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutierrez, Pedro Peirano (Chile)
• World Cinema Documentary Editing Award: Indie Game: The Movie, edited by Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky. (Canada)
• Shorts Audience Award: The Debutante Hunters, directed by Maria White
• Audience Award, Documentary: The Invisible War a film by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering

Congrats all around!

I curse this article for making me look up the trailer to Gone in 60 Seconds. Here, allow me to inflict it on you.

Still, plenty of voice-over jobs remain, especially in television, though women are seldom cast. “There are some very talented, very gifted women in this business that can satisfy any request for a narrator, but the opportunities aren’t given to them,” said Mike Soliday, a talent agent who represents prominent male voice artists like Scott Rummell and Tony Rodgers.

As Mr. Danis put it, “Trailers are really the last frontier for women.”