yourhighness6

[yourhighness6]

Ember Island Players…Racist Caricatures or Meta Commentary?

This episode was supposed to be a fun filler episode to recap the events of the show in a silly way before the series finale, but it’s managed to become arguably one of the most controversial episodes in the fandom. Over the years, Aang’s possessive behavior towards Katara has been rightfully criticized, but there are always people who attempt to justify everything Aang does.

Apparently, the latest iteration of this is the claim that—wait for it—we should be sympathetic towards Aang and give him a pass in The Ember Island Players because he felt “emasculated” due to the supposed “feminization” of his culture.

I’ve been called racist for saying this is a reach, but it’s more than a reach. It’s an entire acrobatics routine; a level of media illiteracy that shows a lack of understanding of the point of that episode.

Yes, Aang’s character is portrayed in a silly, mocking way. So are all of the other characters. That’s the point; the episode was a filler, a gimmick, and the underlying comedy is the fact that all of the characters are reacting to exaggerated, one-dimensional versions of their own personalities.

For example:

Katara is portrayed as an “overemotional crybaby” in her own words, and is constantly giving motivational speeches and crying

Sokka’s “comedic relief” archetype is played up to the point his lines are just corny one-liners

Zuko is portrayed as an angsty, whiny pretty-boy who acts like a bratty asshole at all times

Toph is a huge buff guy (although in this case, it’s a play on how her character was originally going to be a “jock” type male character)

As for Aang? He’s portrayed as unserious, goofy, and childish. Which—just like all the others—is a jokey exaggeration of his childish demeanor and nature. He’s not even alone in taking offense to his portrayal. All of the characters aside from Toph hate their characters for largely the same reason. They’re being confronted with aspects of themselves that make them insecure. For Aang, it’s his immaturity—and specifically his fears that he’ll be rejected by Katara.

As for why Aang is played by a woman? Well, we don’t actually have to wonder about that, because the creators themselves answer this question in the episode commentary.

Bryan: “It's sort of a self-referential joke. Whenever you do a animated show, they usually want to cast, uh, women...who are, like, in their thirties to play boys, because you never know how long the show is gonna go on, and, you know, as Jack mentioned earlier, boys' voices start cracking.” (source)

Wow, imagine that! An inside joke about the cartoon industry in a show’s meta-episode dedicated to making fun of itself? Impossible!

I’m serious though. The episode transcript is right here. Point me to where exactly there is even the slightest hint of anyone bringing up Aang’s culture and tying his childish behavior to it.

That’s right; it isn’t there. Because that wasn’t the point. Aang’s anger did stem from feeling emasculated, but it had nothing to do with culture and everything to do with his own misogynistic attitudes. He was offended at his portrayal on an individual level. I’m not denying that the issue of oppressive nations using femininity as an insult against men of colonized nations is a very real issue, but that was never a theme present in this episode. We don’t see Aang expressing anger towards the Fire Nation, nor do we see him mention anything about culture. What we see is Aang, individually, feeling insulting that his actor is female and Aang being angry at Katara, individually, because the play suggested she felt more attracted to Zuko than him.

Trying to downplay Aang’s behavior and suggest we coddle him despite his atrocious treatment of Katara is a disingenuous reading of the episode.

Why are you reaching to make an excuse for Aang when if you’re really taking the “the point of the episode is that the play is racially demeaning the characters” angle…and why are you not bringing up Sokka? He’s portrayed as a dumb oaf who is always talking about eating meat. There is a much stronger argument to be made there about caricatures, but Sokka isn’t threatening anyone’s ship so apparently nobody cares.

And while we’re talking about caricatures, how about this crap?

Sorry, Aang stans, but this show and Aang’s character aren’t the enlightened portrayals of anti-colonialism and groundbreaking activism you think they are. It’s pretty clear from the context and the episode itself what the intention here was. It is poorly aged comedy from the early 2000s written by white Americans. And we will continue to critique that, thanks.

[yourhighness6]

All the recent buzzfeed unsolved drama be like:

[yourhighness6]

Yue>>>>>Mai as a character by a landslide

So true girlie

[yourhighness6]

Being on the zk side of the fandom is fun because u can say something like "I think the writing choices of two adult men in the 2000s suffer from some implicit sexism " And it's treated like you've killed a person

[yourhighness6]

People hating on ZK shippers for the "pipelines" to other fandoms are so funny tbh. "zutaras are just like bellyconrads" "zutaras are just like bylers" First of all ppl can ship what they want and second of all as someone who hates both those ships and has a special place in her heart for wenclair, its really funny

[yourhighness6]

Some zutara ig.

[yourhighness6]

[yourhighness6]

AHHH I haven't posted in forever! I'm not dead, I promise, I've just been in the process of moving continents for the summer after the end of freshman year (if u think moving into a college dorm from another country is difficult u have no idea how difficult moving out of a college dorm to another continent is). Anyway I may have a fic I'm working on for ZK month and I've been going back to my roots rereading the wof books so... maybe some cleril or qinter content soon idk

[yourhighness6]

[yourhighness6]

This is such a random thought but is it just me or were we cheated out of seeing the first conversation between the water tribe siblings and the members of their sister tribe in "The Waterbending Master". Like, it probably would have been hilarious for one considering that they would have to explain that yes, this is the avatar, yes, he is alive, yes, they are just kids, yes, they are the chief's children. Besides that, this is the first time the Southern and Northern tribes have had contact with each other for probably at least a decade. We were robbed

[yourhighness6]

it's wild to me that people act as if chani's primary reason for leaving paul was bitterness about being a concubine like girl..... i promise that did not even register in her brain compared to the realization that paul had chosen to become her people's oppressor, to become her oppressor, to destroy the equality that was very foundation of their relationship. i promise her agency and her loyalty to her people, things which existed before paul and will exist after him, were more important to her than how "official" her relationship would be considered within a system she did not care about.

[yourhighness6]

something about mai potentially giving up everything for zuko and ty lee immediately doing the same but for her reels of lesbian unrequited love and i need to read about it NOW

[yourhighness6]

Lets be real if Coryo didn't find the guns he wouldn't have tried Lucy Gray SHE would have killed HIM because he would complain too fucking much

[yourhighness6]

Am I high or is loml giving low-key Snowbiard vibes

[yourhighness6]

I was reading TLC the other day (I love Marissa Meyer) and this might piss a lot of people off but I actually hate Kaider. They'd barely even met each other in the first book and Cinder has at least a semi-idealized version of him no matter how much she claims she's "not like other girls" idolizing him. Their dynamic therefore seems superficial to me for the rest of the first book and even though it does become true love, I also think that Cinder's ending is just kind of sad. She wanted to travel the world and be independent and get away from the pressures of the prejudice against her but just ends up stuck in a palace until she abdicates the throne, and I'm expected to believe she'd be perfectly happy being Empress the rest of her life? I might be missing something here or it might just be personal preference but honestly I just dislike Kaider it makes zero sense to me

[yourhighness6]

Just saw someone say that Coryo in the books was probs straight but movie!Coryo was bisexual and I'm like what are we talking about here he's the most bisexual psychopath ever in the book AND the movie