#maybe it's just a fundamentally different pov but I'd rather remove poorly handled man commentary on misogyny than try to improve it

[sirenalpha]

I am saying that Netflix is addressing it though, they're toning down the misogyny not erasing it and since the show's not out I can't say how well they've achieved this goal only that it's a legitimate one in terms of crafting a better, more consistent narrative

the original show was a cartoon for preteens made in the mid 00s by two white guys who barely understand misogyny

the whole post is about how flawed this aspect of Sokka's character and the show's messaging on misogyny overall is, Sokka's "arc" to unlearn misogyny being something major and important to the character is something that exists in fandom and isn't accurate to what's on screen

the point of Sokka's character is not to unlearn toxic masculinity, this "arc" of his lasts all of 4 episodes and is solely focused on the idea that women can fight and be good at it, no questioning other aspects of how women are restricted, how labor is divided, it's not even about the water tribe's cultures northern or southern or Sokka's personal stereotypically masculine interests which you can tell by the fact Sokka's unlearning isn't brought up at all while in the NWT and his interest in meat, hunting, and being manly isn't questioned at all and continued on through the show, an arc doesn't matter much if it results in no narrative consequences or has a strong counterargument of yeah Sokka insulted Suki but he should still get to kiss and date her

like look at these responses to see what I mean by cartoonish/unrealistic set up, this is what I'm taking about

I can attribute some of Sokka's early set up vs the s1 finale and s3 flashbacks to they literally didn't know they were gonna do that because it's a serialized show, but once you have it Sokka's issues are goofy and it cannot realistically be attributed to him being the only teen male left behind

their tribe has been dwindling and losing their separate non-NWT culture for decades, it's all hands on deck for survival people are gonna break the boundaries of traditional divisions of labor so they can live and on top of that, while sure women can raise sexists (I'm not even advocating for Sokka to exhibit no sexism at all) but I am saying Kanna crossed the whole world to get away from that, that's not having a casual opinion on sexism

it doesn't make sense with Sokka's personal familial and cultural history, and it doesn't make sense for it to be a 4 episode blip for one male character when like I said you see the exact same thing in the EK regarding female benders with absolutely no commentary at all and almost the same in FN and also no commentary

why doesn't Toph say anything about other female benders or ever talk to Katara about this? Why do Toph and Katara never talk about facing Azula literally the only other female bender they've met the whole damn show? why is dealing with or combatting misogyny still about addressing a male character's insecurity with his masculinity and he needs a kiss from the girl who's better than him afterwards to get through it? why can't a male audience hear and see more from a female perspectives on all this as a cure to podcast bros?

Netflix is making a live action show for an older audience in the 2020s with the foreknowledge of the original show already having been finished instead of an ongoing serialized work

if they tone down Sokka's misogyny, they are more aligned with their medium and audience while correcting an inconsistency or potentially a retcon of the original show

but it also leaves them room to say or deal with misogyny in other ways if they don't have to spend time on babysitting Sokka's ego for an episode then letting him go right back to being stereotypically masculine

will they do that or do it well? No idea cuz it's not out and I haven't watched it

but I am saying the original show did a bad job in this area, it's not that important to Sokka's overall character or arc as his insecurities don't have to be intrinsically tied to misogyny or masculinity so Netflix has a legitimate narrative reason to tone down Sokka's misogyny to improve the overall show and handle the messaging around misogyny better

so like I said, this is a non-issue as a statement, it's not destroying Sokka as a character, it does not delegitimize the adaptation

it's also not saying the adaptation will ultimately be good or better than the original show either cuz again it's not out yet, just because they stated a legitimate intention doesn't mean the execution will be any good

I'm seeing so much commentary on people reacting to the live action atla toning down Sokka's misogyny

and I'm over here like this is a total non-issue because in my own rewrite of the show I already did that exact thing, it makes complete sense to do it and they should do it because it's a weaker aspect of the original show

Sokka's early misogyny is utterly cartoonish in comparison to the set up of the rest of the SWT, it doesn't feel realistic for the only teenaged boy in a dying culture surrounded by adult women with a grandmother who left a more out and out misogynist society to act the way he does

how Sokka "resolves" his misogyny is equally cartoonish, I never liked how in The Warriors of Kyoshi literally episode 4 of the show makes a teen girl compromise her own culture with a female only fighting tradition teach a boy who is supremely rude and disrespectful to her and then still be attracted to him afterwards, it's more misogyny to fix misogyny and is very obviously men writing about how to fix misogyny especially as they have Aang make a joke about Sokka wearing a dress after going through how meaningful the fighting costume is and how a lot of Asian clothing with hanfu influences like atla borrows from would have men in what to western eyes would be dresses, Aang has already seen multiple male authority figures in robes, the joke makes no sense

I also wouldn't consider Sokka's misogyny genuinely resolved after this, consider how the show deals with his romantic relationships with both Yue and Suki and how both can be seen as extensions of how Kataang is treated in the show, rewards for the hero, especially with how Sokka interacts aggressively with Hahn instead of respecting Yue's wishes whatever her reasons for them, I think an argument can be made that Yue's death is a fridging for Sokka's storyline rather than or in combination with being a consequence of Aang's failure as an avatar or the culmination of her own storyline where she fulfills her duties as a leader to protect her own people

Beyond his romantic relationships, while Sokka drops a lot of his more misogynistic language with Katara, he doesn't support her when she faces off with the NWT leaders to learn waterbending, and he still leaves the caretaking and food preparation and grocery shopping to her which is more common than him going out to hunt or gather in order to provide for the group while he takes a leadership role like determining their travel schedule and routes, it is not an even division of labor and falls along traditional sex stereotypes

In addition to his typical duties to the group, Sokka also remains invested in the trappings of masculinity after ep4, he's concerned about what's manly and how he compares to Jet for example, there's no investigation or interrogation in his interest in meat and hunting and how they relate to masculinity and his misogyny, in the episode with Piando, his insecurity as a non-bender is resolved by giving him a new male mentor and a new martial skill, sword fighting, which is masculine in both western and Asian cultures rather than assuaging his self esteem issues in any less stereotypically masculine ways, I also think it was done so he could compare more favorably to Zuko, another male character, and even his interest in engineering and mechanics comes with a male mentor and is a traditionally masculine pursuit

the show's poor handling of misogyny also extends beyond Sokka, with the NWT, the show acts as if Pakku is the only reason the tribe is misogynistic and the only consequences to that misogyny is that women can't waterbend and there are arranged marriages, and that both the NWT and Pakku's misogyny is resolved by allowing only Katara to learn to waterbend which she doesn't even earn on her own merits, she gets the opportunity because Pakku likes her grandmother

none of this is realistic, misogyny is not because of one bad apple, Pakku doesn't make Yue's arranged marriage, Chief Arnook does, he picked Hahn for her, and the show acts as if Arnook has no authority to compel Pakku to teach Katara or any ability to persuade him in order to reduce his culpability in the NWT's misogyny as its leader to make him a more respectable character so it's not uncomfortable when Aang and Sokka follow his orders in the battle later on, but women not being able to bend and forced into arranged marriages is still status quo when the gaang leaves, Yue's just dead

I'm not even convinced the show runners understand what's wrong with arranged marriage, the issue is not Yue can't be with Sokka who she likes and at most has a slight crush on cuz she's only known him for like two days, it's that she's being treated as male property, a broodmare, and a vehicle to ensure Hahn receives the throne because her father has no male heir and picked some guy to succeed him instead, like it's not explicit in the show but that is the implication based on the historical reality of princesses in arranged marriages, and the show has her get out of it only through death idc that she ascends to being a spirit, it's still a teen girl that dies

There's also no discussion by the show of the Earth Kingdom's misogyny when it has the exact same shit going on, Toph is the only female earthbender in the show not including avatars, there might have been a female earthbender in the background when Katara broke them out of prison, but I'm not really counting that, the entire army and Dai Li are all made up of men, the EK might even be worse because the show doesn't demonstrate that women and girls even have the capacity to earthbend aside from Toph and avatars and Toph doesn't even learn from a human, she has to learn from animals, the show treats this as commentary on her disability but the show has no compelling reason why it can't also be commentary on her sex, Toph was also originally supposed to be a boy so this could have ended up so much worse there literally would have been no female earthbenders aside from avatars at all, I'm not counting Oma as she might just be a mythological figure not a real person that once lived

The Fire Nation kinda barely avoids the same issue, Azula is the only named female firebender aside from avatars in the show but she has two female sidekicks who despite being non-benders show martial skill and there are clearly female soldiers and guards in the FN military so there are much stronger implications of female firebenders existing and being completely allowed to train their abilities and that Azula isn't exceptional in that respect like Toph is, only for being a prodigy with blue fire

Azula was also originally supposed to have an arranged marriage in s3 and they dropped it in favor of showing that royal and noble girls could casually date in the FN which has wild implications for women's empowerment in the country more so than but especially in combination with the fact women can train and join the military (which is why I say the FN is not fascist it's literally the least misogynistic country aside from Kyoshi and by like a country mile so it's literally not misogynistic enough) not that the show does anything more than minor teen drama with it

again, the vast majority of this misogyny is completely unremarked upon by the show especially after s1 when they leave the NWT, it is clearly a fictional world made by men with no true understanding of misogyny just a vague awareness that misogyny is bad and what the really obvious and outdated examples of it are, this is a narrative inconsistency in the show to have the examples and commentary on misogyny be so cartoonish in the beginning and then disappear after s1

your options to resolve this inconsistency is to either go all in with more realistic misogyny and provide commentary on all of it but this takes effort and will be divisive, or take the easier route and ease off the cartoonish-ness of it and comment less on it to avoid drawing attention to all instances of misogyny in the show

obviously Netflix was gonna do the latter

(not me tho, I'm making it less cartoony and dealing with it in my rewrite)