I knew almost nothing about this show going in, but I enjoyed The Last Airbender so I decided to check it out. I heard it had problems, but no one told me it was straight-up fascist propaganda.
What I’m about to rant about isn’t me reading too much into it, because the points they’re trying to make are about as subtle as a horse pissing, and this is a popular franchise that all ages watch and are influenced by.
Republic City is clearly supposed to be America.
The Equalists are clearly supposed to stand-in in for a leftist group fighting against oppression. Their posters are even designed like leftist posters.
The Equalists are disadvantaged minorities, similar to MLKs civil rights movement or the woman’s suffrage movement. Except in this show, these people have harder lives because they are born without superpowers, and because of this they are jealous and bitter of those who do have superpowers and want to take everyone’s powers away because of jealousy.
This is akin to saying minorities aren’t really oppressed, they’re just genetically inferior and not ‘special’. Korra straight up tells an equalist that they want to be whiny and oppressed. Our Hero, everyone.
Can’t wait for the episode where Korra tells someone who can’t afford cancer treatment that they’re just jealous of healthy people. Hell, considering how hamfisted the Equalists as an expy for leftists is, this is like saying that leftists are jealous of healthy people and want to make everyone sick.
This isn’t subtle, the way this show misrepresents the left is straight out of the Nazi propaganda playbook.
Even if you can look past the pro-fascist morals, the show is just boring. Gone is the adventure and unique fantasy setting of The Last Airbender. The show now spends most of the time focusing on a boring love triangle and an uninteresting sport. It was actually this that made me stop watching because it was so slow-paced and the characters were so unrelatable/unlikable.
I mean, The Last Airbender could be lib as shit sometimes (the Ba Sing Se episode comes to mind) but it at least was a fun adventure about defeating a fascist empire. In The Last Airbender, the hero wins by taking away the superpowers of the leader of the evil empire. Making the pro-power, pro-empire morals that The Legend of Korra is trying to put forward seem even more hypocritical and hollow.
Another thing that sucks is that I’ve seen most criticisms of this show are hand-waved away as people just not liking it because Korra is a “strong female lead”.
Neo-Liberals hiding fascism behind progressivism, name a more iconic duo.
Anyway, that was me shitting on a show about 10 years too late, but fuck it. I had no idea it was that bad.
The equalist plotline is so fucking bad, not only is the non-benders presented as not seriously disadvantaged but their entire movement is just a corrupt bender trying to gain power by exploiting them.
And then all our girlboss has to do to collapse the movement is reveal the leaders status as a bender, because clearly the movement is not based in real structural and material inequality and disadvantages, they just hate all benders equally because of resentments. Just turns into libshit both sidesing where they are presented as essentially non-bender supremacists, realistically it shouldnt fucking matter if benders are part of the movement, particularly not if they are being violently repressed and would get a lot of help from people whos bodies are weapons.
Wait until you get to the fourth season, literal nazi power fantasy/apologia.
UwU the nazis just wanted to make the Earth Kingdom Great Again and helped a lot of people, they just got a bit power crazy derailed, but it’s okay cuz we gonna redeem Earth Hitler later on UwU
Liberalism and nazism, one big heart.
Kuvira is obviously a KMT stand in. she’s a progressive force, regardless of Radio Free Earth Kingdom has to say. Ultimate proof is that the resolve the series by balkanizing the Earth Kingdom into it’s province republics so they can never again present unified resistance against military or financial imperialism.
I disagree. I think Kuvira is much more a analogous to “strong man” third world anti-imperialist leaders like Nasser or Gaddafi.
In the context of being a underdeveloped, overexploited country like the Earth Kingdom, “make it great again” is different than in highly developed imperialist country. Kuvira is a modernizing force violently restructuring feudal relations and changing a kingdom into a nation-state while also militarily repossessing Earth Kingdom lands from colonizers and imperialists.
If the Fire Nation were talking about “making the nation great again” that would be just fascism.
Honestly given that Kuvira were given nazi imagery such as the superweapons and having concentration camps (that were never shown even though theres a goddamn murder suicide scene) wouldnt suprise me if they think Gadaffi is literally Libyan hitler.
Even with her giant robot, I think that’s treated kinda like the WMDs the west is in constant fear of third world countries developing.
That said, you’re right. The folks who ran the show probably don’t see a difference. They’re likely the type of libs who unironically used terms like “islamo-fascist” to describe Assad or Saddam.
Communism is when your genetically superior superpowers are taken away from you.
You see this trope a lot in children’s fiction.
I know My Little Pony had an episode about this.
But what does that actually translate into in real life?
It’s not like expropriating someone’s property or restructuring how an economic system works. It’s more like … Communism is when all the tall people have to be reduced in height so we’re all equals heights … or something.
The fact that Sato, the stand-in for Henry Ford, is one of the Equalists tells you everything - that “Equal” just means “Evil” and has fuck-ton nothing to do with economic structures, just magical genetic individual superpowers.
Oh oh also, the leftists are secretly funded by a billionaire who just wants to sell weapons! A Soros stand in.
Fun fact, r/neoliberal once recommended Legend of Korra as “a good show about the dangers of populism”
I hate them so much
Lmao of course
Sounds like you didn’t make it through the first season. You might be interested to learn that a different political ideology set as the antagonist for each season. You think the season about communism is fascist propaganda? Wait till you see the season about fascism!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOH8e00C92tKmamWumsPVJuHnremKXtDT
These videos are pretty good, or at least I thought so a few years ago
I was about to link the JackSaint videos myself. His perspective is good because I think the critique is as profound as it needs to be, so not very deep.
Kay and Skittles also did a series on Korra which was aight
Oh crap I was actually thinking about Kay and Skittles, but still… Good vids.
I hate how Amon is given a sympathetic backstory that gets no exploration at all. He’s supposedly orphaned by benders who his parents couldn’t fight.
That’s legit what happens to Katara before the start of TLA. But instead of exploring that trauma, the story focuses on what it feels like to bend and how losing that is a profound loss.
It could’ve been a cool exploration on the themes of powerlessness and coping with that, but instead it’s just that benders are just better and if you don’t bend then you need to get out of the way.
In stories, it’s easy to assume you’d be a character with powers or knowledge, but the reality is more likely to be you’re the one on the outside of power in these fictional settings
Isn’t it a straight up lie also? Like Amon is actually a bender himself just doing shit for power and tricking the gullible moronic commoners?
It’s more complicated he’s a bender himself whose dad was abusive about bending by bullying his younger brother who was less powerful than them. And he does actually believe in what he’s saying
the show however ignores the sympathetic parts of this backstory
That seems even worse somehow, at least if hes just power hungry that makes sense in this dumb setup they did, but if he genuinely believes in what hes talking about wouldnt he just shape the movement to allow sympathetic benders to be part of it?
Hate when you can just obviously detect the hands of the authors making their characters do dumb shit and not think properly so that their intended story works no matter what.
Pretending to be a non bender does make sense as his dad was a wanted mob boss and not being known as a bender helps conceal his identity and avoid attention.
The main way the show ignores this sympathetic backstory is by narratively treating this kind hearted character who wants to help people weaker than himself as a power hungry monster. Despite the obvious fact that if you are power hungry you would cater to the interests of the powerful not the powerless
Despite the obvious fact that if you are power hungry you would cater to the interests of the powerful not the powerless
:parenti:
Its funny that the leftist villains (amon and zaheer) are dead or have all their friends dead and be imprisoned and chained meanwhile fascist girlboss kuvira gets to have a redemption arc.
Yeah after three seasons of left allegory it was hard to ignore how well they treat Kuvira.
