Beware of Fangirls

jedifreac:

After three years of working on Racebending.com I am not sure if I should be excited by how fiercely and rapidly the fandom can and will break down why the film was problematic, or sad that years and years later, the same excuses and apologetics get trotted out over and over.

It’s hard, sometimes, to stand in a sea of A:TLA fandom and not know if I am surrounded by supporters of our efforts to fight discrimination in entertainment media, or people who view this subversion as traitorous to our fandom identity. Apparently, the good fan is docile, and “calms down” and doesn’t clog the Korra tag with ‘frivolous’ or ‘irrelevant’ commentary. Even if the commentary is about a serious thing that happened to a franchise we all love. Even if media critique is an essential part of fandom.

The reality is that the “The Last Airbender” film replicated the same oppressions and casting barriers faced by Bruce Lee. It replicated the same systemic discriminations—systemic racism, yes, racism—that Mako Iwamatsu, the late voice actor of Uncle Iroh, spent his entire career fighting. I cannot presume to speak for the dead, but I am reasonably certain both of them would have supported the fans against the casting, were they still alive. Or perhaps they would have been saddened to see these casting patterns still happening, and the people still denying, in 2010?

The Mako that Korra’s Mako is named after spoke out directly against these practices. Would you dare tell him that he was “too sensitive”? Would you tell Bruce Lee he was “making a big deal out of nothing?” Yet, merely having to scroll past those speaking out against racism on the Korra tag is a prohibitive inconvenience to those who view themselves as the “true” fans.

Long story short, this is a big deal.