#kataras outfit based on inuit clothing

[panukkie]

More avatar ! featuring kataang

[stardust948]

Zutara Lavaboy and Sharkgirl redesign

[vartamin]

i will say that i think kiawentiio is a great casting choice for Katara, she's a great fit for the character and im super excited to see her perform. i will also say however (and this is no fault of kiawentiio's) that im rly disappointed in the costuming choices regarding Katara specifically

Out of all the pictures of the cast so far, Katara definitely feels the most "costume-y" and unrealistic

The design of the patterned pieces on her coat do not resemble any type of Inuit or otherwise indigenous embroidery that I know of, in fact they aren't embroidery at all (which I find personally offensive because embroidery would've looked SO much better and more natural and would relate it more solidly to the Inuit and indigenous clothing it should be based off of) but they are reminiscent of water tribe designs in the show so I would give them a pass on that technicality. However, it's just so bad looking I really can't let it go. It's ugly! There! I said it! I have no real reason to dislike it other than my own personal preference! So what!

Moving on from the coat, the absolute lack of Inuit inspiration is a lot more apparent in the inner layers/traveling clothes. I understand that the Southern Water Tribe being inspired by Inuit/Inupiat/Yupik culture is a cultural outlier in the rest of the show, where the other nations draw from an amalgamation of East and South East Asian cultures, and the Northern Water Tribe of Mongolian and various Siberian cultures. Katara and Sokka's traveling clothes (both in the og show and the netflix adaptation) seem to be inspired more by East Asian clothing in order to bring their designs more in line with the rest of the show, but the lack of Inuit and indigenous inspiration in any of these new designs (that we've been shown so far at least) really annoys me

To my knowledge, even the inner layers in Inuit garments are commonly made of skins, not cloth, but there are other cold climate cultures that will use fabrics like cotton, wool and silks in their clothing, so I could forgive them (again) if they drew accurately from those designs instead.

Katara's outfit appears (to me) to most likely be based off of the Mongolian Deel, but I think an argument could be made for Qing Dynasty Chinese dress as well as they both wrap around the body to clasp to the side of the chest (the look of the clasps however do not seem to have any basis in anything whatsoever)

However, netflix seems to have gone the same way as the shyamalan movie in choosing what looks like a linen(??) fabric? which really stumps me because, to my knowledge, linen is not a fabric often used in cold climate cultures. While it does have thermoregulatory qualities and works well for insulation, it is much more well known for its cooling capabilities than its warming ones. I understand that, to be true to the show they needed to use fabrics not common in traditional Inuit fashion, but even the Mongolian Deel is much more likely to be made of cotton, wool, silk or skins, so the decision to use it seriously throws me for a bit of a loop.

Katara's iconic "hair loopies" are a reference to a traditional Inuit hairstyle (Nunavut Inuit specifically), but the way they have the braids start so far from her part with those plastic beads just makes it look so unnatural. It might be more accurate to the look of the show but spirits it doesn't look good (also just realized now writing this that her necklace pendant is white too it looks like a plastic bottle cap what the fuck EDIT: you see the difference between the faux fur lining her hood and inside it??? CHEAP OLD NAVY DOLLAR STORE LOOKIN ASS COAT)

Even Kanna, who wears the same hairstyle, has her loops integrated more naturally and they look so much better in general

the beads in Katara's hair are not culturally Inuit as far as I know, and instead seem to resemble Tibetan beaded and braided hairstyles. You can see here, though, that they somehow manage to not look like absolute shit and out of place like netflix has Katara's looking (and also are not plastic dental floss white they aren't even white in the show why would they do this to me specifically??)

Somehow, the studio producing a franchise live action show cannot make Katara's hair look better than one of those cheap cosplay wigs you can get off aliexpress

It's not hard to make a show-accurate Katara hairstyle work, though. Silvousplaits on YouTube has a great tutorial for a realistic Katara hairstyle that, in my opinion, is somehow better than the multimillion studio hair they've given Katara in the live action

https://youtu.be/tXP-7ja6J_k?feature=shared

Cosplayers are great and devote so much time and talent to making their costumes, but there is absolutely no reason that professionally produced costuming should look worse than something handmade by amateurs that can often only devote so much time to a craft they've picked up outside of their actual careers.

It's ridiculous.

I don't want to prejudge the ATLA live action before it's even out yet, but I already know I'm going to spend the whole time lamenting every single design choice they've made regarding Katara, and the lack of care that I see in her design makes me reticent to watch it.

[peartarts]

older katara & sokka,, but w brown eyes :-)

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[alextir-creates]

Sukka Fankids by Tigrette-of-Fire

Hey everyone! After a month of debugging my computer so I could access Paint Tool SAI again, I am finally back! This time with more fankids. Alex Tir, chronic OC maker, strikes again.

Sokka and Suki were my favorite canon AtLA ship, so I always felt it was a shame they broke up post-canon. In classical fandom fashion, I have decided to disregard that entirely. In any case, meet Taiyin and Arnaaluk, Sokka and Suki’s twin daughters. They were a treat to design, honestly, and I want to touch on a few design notes before moving onto character backstories. (Cont. Under the cut!)

Taiyin’s hair is not in a Fire Nation style topknot, but is rather based off of an Inuit hairstyle (referenced here). Because I’m basic, Taiyin’s name is also a subtle homage to Yue, because I feel like Sokka and Suki would probably be open and honest with each other about that. (Also, bonus points if you can figure out how it’s a homage). As for Arnaaluk, the headband she’s wearing is a nod to her mother’s culture, given that her hairstyle is distinctly Southern Water Tribe. As a mixed raced, multi-ethnic person myself, it’s important to me when designing mixed OCs to have them celebrate all the pieces of their heritage. (Am I bitter about how Bryke handled that in LoK? You bet I am.) The clothing on Kyoshi Island (or, at least, the civilian clothing – I can’t say definitively for the Kyoshi Warrior outfits) is inspired by Ainu cultural dress. So, I did some research and did my best to design Arnaaluk an Ainu-inspired headband.

Taiyin and Arnaaluk are both waterbenders, though they ultimately choose different specialties. Arnaaluk specializes in healing (though she’s certainly capable of defending herself). She’s the epitome of “[this lady does] not start fights, but [she] can finish them,” and generally claims to be the twin in possession of the braincell, though she secretly enjoys shenanigans just as much as Taiyin. Taiyin is a combat waterbender (with waterbending first-aid training, of course). Studying under both her Aunt Katara and her mother, Taiyin fights with a fusion style of Southern waterbending, Northern waterbending, and classical Kyoshi Warrior martial arts (two words: ice fans).

Where their stories continue from there, however, is largely up in the air. Theoretically, I could just make the necessary modifications to fit Taiyin and Arnaaluk into the Legend of Korra timeline. And while I’m not adverse, to that, per say, the problem is that my feelings about LoK are overwhelmingly negative. Like, on a bad day when I’m being particularly uncharitable, the endgame Korrasami and what that did for lgbtq+ representation in cartoons is the only thing that justifies LoK’s existence to me. Before anyone comes at me – no, this is not about shipping, it’s about racism. While AtLA itself was by no means perfect (there’s some excellent meta outlining what AtLA did wrong by Hindu, South Asian, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian fans – I highly recommend checking it out), but the way Lok treated its cultural inspirations – more than one of which are cultures I belong to - was actually hard for me to stomach. I have no issues with other people loving the series – I get why it’s important – it’s just also not for me. So, the long story short is we’ll see if there’s a particular verse that’ll grow around these gals (admittedly, I would really love to have Arnaaluk succeed Sokka as Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, but that’s for another day).

Art © Me

Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra © Mike DeMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Nickelodeon

Image ID: Neck up headshots of two teenage girls. The girl on the left, labelled “Taiyin” in writing below the headshot, has a bob of reddish-brown hair with the upper half of her hair tied into a bun. She also has two looped braids starting at her temples that tuck back into the bun. She has light-to-medium brown skin, and pale blue eyes (the same color as her father’s). She’s grinning in such a way that her teeth are visable, with the left side of her mouth (viewer’s right) pulling higher than the other.

The girl on the right, labelled “Arnaaluk” in writing above the headshot, has darker reddish-brown hair pulled into two long braids at either side of her head. The braids are each tied off with a blue wrap with white trim. Like her sister, she also has light-to-medium brown skin, though her eyes are dark blue (the same color as her mother’s). She has “hair loopies” (like those worn by Katara), though hers tuck into the beginnings of her braids behind her ears. She is also wearing a medium blue headband with a light blue pattern of geometric whirls and points.

Underneath the headshot of Taiyin are logo-style renditions of Avatar Kyoshi’s headband (in bronze) and the Southern Water Tribe crest (in blue). Kiyoshi’s headband is tilted, and slightly above and to the left of the SWT crest.

The entirety of the image is bounded by a teal square “frame.”

End ID.

[neurotypical-karen]

The people I know who are Inuit -one of the cultures the Water Tribes in AtLA are based on- still have a lot of traditional stuff mixed in with their modern clothes. I wish that stuff was reflected more in modern AU art of the gaang bc right now in a lot of artwork Katara and Somma are just wearing generic Influencer Outfits and it'd be cool if yall incorporated some indigenous imagery into their designs. Like it'd be so easy and Better if u just incorporated kamik boots or traditional jewelry or just have stuff with popular inuit imagery on it.

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. 

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!