take-a-moment-to-think: I’ll make it no secret that I am a total nerd about cartoons/anime/comics.  While many might think that it’s childish to still be reading them and enjoying them, I think that in many ways, animation can provide gripping plots, extremely lovable characters, and a window into how the current society is attempting to reach its children.  We saw it in Disney movies most prominently, perhaps.  Women went from being the helpless damsel in distress to the savior of all China.  Men went from being the perfect prince charmings with their alabaster smiles to having real thoughts and desires and troubles.  Through the years, cartoons have progressed so that the sexist jokes from the Flintstones are no longer funny and so that the expected norm/traditional family structures have been questioned repeatedly.  It’s okay to be a man with feelings, it’s okay to be a woman with ambitions, it’s okay to come from a single-parent household, it’s okay to be different.   But however much I like to believe that everyone who views animation thinks the same way I do about its progress, this is sadly far from the truth, as the graphic above shows.  The image is from a new Nickelodeon series to air later this year, titled “Avatar: The Legend of Korra.”  It is a sequel mini-series to the popular “Avatar: the Last Airbender.”  Before I launch into my tirade on what is problematic about this quote, let me quote the creators of Avatar, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, when they gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal.   The new “Avatar” is a woman. What inspired you to change the sex of the protagonist of the series? Michael DiMartino: It’s not so much about changing because we had Avatar Kyoshi before Aang. We’d established that the Avatar can be male or female and we just thought let’s explore one of those more in depth, because Kyoshi was a popular character with a lot of fans and it seemed like a great opportunity to not retread what we’d done with Aang, who was a great hero, we all loved him, but we really wanted to try something different. And we have so many great female fans out there, who really responded to Katara in the first series, we thought we have the fan base who are really going to enjoy seeing the Avatar be a female. Konietzko: Mike and I, we love those characters too, and we’ve encountered countless fans who are male who really like those characters too. We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda nonsense to us. So there you have it.  The creators not only believe that it’s silly that you can’t have an action series led by a female character, they probably also believe (though they don’t explicitly state it) that it’s silly that you can’t have a strong female character who actually looks strong.  Not manly, strong.   Let’s face it, the only difference between Korra’s build and Katara’s (I chose Katara for  comparison because that’s who is referenced in the graphic) is that Korra has broader shoulders and defined deltoids.  But here’s the thing: Anyone, regardless of gender, when they train as much and as hard for combat as the Avatar is supposed to, can end up with defined musculature.  If we look at Olympic female gymnasts, we see that in order for them to possess the grace and athleticism that impresses us, they too possess wonderfully strong arms.   But perhaps we are too fooled by the images that Hollywood gives us.  Hollywood gives us women like Lara Croft, who are strong female characters, but possess no physical attributes that relate their strength.  Instead we see only their slender figures, and the only things that can be defined about their bodies clearly are their breasts.  Even for heroines like Electra (played by Jennifer Gardner), who had more athletic figures (broad shoulders, muscular arms, etc…), we are far more distracted by their scanty clothing, their ample cleavage, the way their hair whips back and forth, etc…  Try picking up a fitness magazine perhaps.  Those gorgeous, healthy women are proud to sport their defined deltoids, their strong, muscular legs, and their chiseled abs.  And that’s how it is.  To be as strong as Korra needs to be, she must train, she must work, and in the end, she will have something to show for all the hard work she is putting in.  It has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity, it is a question of fitness.   The creators of Avatar have done amazing things in animation to project to children a different image of society and of what’s expected of them.  In Avatar the Last Airbender, they showed through Katara, Suki, Toph, Azula, Mei, Tai Li, etc… that heroines can be just as strong as their male counterparts, just as clever, just as snarky even.  They showed through Zuko that your family’s path is not what defines who you are, that it’s okay to be different from the world you grew up in, and that a character with a physical deformity can still be one of the most loved characters in any show.  They showed through Aang and the White Lotus Society that your age does not have to hinder you from contributing to society in the best ways you can.  What these wonderful writers have done with Korra is nothing new, it is nothing terribly trailblazing, but it is still a noted effort in the right direction for children’s animation and also for society’s views as a whole on equality.   If you also looked at Korra’s character design and were taken aback by her visible strength, please stop and consider the traditional gender paradigms and rules, and think to break them.  If you profess to truly care about gender equality, stop and consider all that that means.  It means equality in the workplace, in schools, in speech, in representation, it also means image.  It means that men should be able to wear skirts and heels if they so choose and that women can wear baggy pants and have muscular features if they so choose.

take-a-moment-to-think:

I’ll make it no secret that I am a total nerd about cartoons/anime/comics. 

While many might think that it’s childish to still be reading them and enjoying them, I think that in many ways, animation can provide gripping plots, extremely lovable characters, and a window into how the current society is attempting to reach its children.  We saw it in Disney movies most prominently, perhaps.  Women went from being the helpless damsel in distress to the savior of all China.  Men went from being the perfect prince charmings with their alabaster smiles to having real thoughts and desires and troubles.  Through the years, cartoons have progressed so that the sexist jokes from the Flintstones are no longer funny and so that the expected norm/traditional family structures have been questioned repeatedly.  It’s okay to be a man with feelings, it’s okay to be a woman with ambitions, it’s okay to come from a single-parent household, it’s okay to be different.  

But however much I like to believe that everyone who views animation thinks the same way I do about its progress, this is sadly far from the truth, as the graphic above shows.  The image is from a new Nickelodeon series to air later this year, titled “Avatar: The Legend of Korra.”  It is a sequel mini-series to the popular “Avatar: the Last Airbender.”  Before I launch into my tirade on what is problematic about this quote, let me quote the creators of Avatar, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, when they gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal.  

The new “Avatar” is a woman. What inspired you to change the sex of the protagonist of the series?

Michael DiMartino: It’s not so much about changing because we had Avatar Kyoshi before Aang. We’d established that the Avatar can be male or female and we just thought let’s explore one of those more in depth, because Kyoshi was a popular character with a lot of fans and it seemed like a great opportunity to not retread what we’d done with Aang, who was a great hero, we all loved him, but we really wanted to try something different. And we have so many great female fans out there, who really responded to Katara in the first series, we thought we have the fan base who are really going to enjoy seeing the Avatar be a female.

Konietzko: Mike and I, we love those characters too, and we’ve encountered countless fans who are male who really like those characters too. We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda nonsense to us.

So there you have it.  The creators not only believe that it’s silly that you can’t have an action series led by a female character, they probably also believe (though they don’t explicitly state it) that it’s silly that you can’t have a strong female character who actually looks strong.  Not manly, strong.  

Let’s face it, the only difference between Korra’s build and Katara’s (I chose Katara for  comparison because that’s who is referenced in the graphic) is that Korra has broader shoulders and defined deltoids.  But here’s the thing: Anyone, regardless of gender, when they train as much and as hard for combat as the Avatar is supposed to, can end up with defined musculature.  If we look at Olympic female gymnasts, we see that in order for them to possess the grace and athleticism that impresses us, they too possess wonderfully strong arms.  

But perhaps we are too fooled by the images that Hollywood gives us.  Hollywood gives us women like Lara Croft, who are strong female characters, but possess no physical attributes that relate their strength.  Instead we see only their slender figures, and the only things that can be defined about their bodies clearly are their breasts.  Even for heroines like Electra (played by Jennifer Gardner), who had more athletic figures (broad shoulders, muscular arms, etc…), we are far more distracted by their scanty clothing, their ample cleavage, the way their hair whips back and forth, etc… 

Try picking up a fitness magazine perhaps.  Those gorgeous, healthy women are proud to sport their defined deltoids, their strong, muscular legs, and their chiseled abs.  And that’s how it is.  To be as strong as Korra needs to be, she must train, she must work, and in the end, she will have something to show for all the hard work she is putting in.  It has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity, it is a question of fitness.  

The creators of Avatar have done amazing things in animation to project to children a different image of society and of what’s expected of them.  In Avatar the Last Airbender, they showed through Katara, Suki, Toph, Azula, Mei, Tai Li, etc… that heroines can be just as strong as their male counterparts, just as clever, just as snarky even.  They showed through Zuko that your family’s path is not what defines who you are, that it’s okay to be different from the world you grew up in, and that a character with a physical deformity can still be one of the most loved characters in any show.  They showed through Aang and the White Lotus Society that your age does not have to hinder you from contributing to society in the best ways you can.  What these wonderful writers have done with Korra is nothing new, it is nothing terribly trailblazing, but it is still a noted effort in the right direction for children’s animation and also for society’s views as a whole on equality.  

If you also looked at Korra’s character design and were taken aback by her visible strength, please stop and consider the traditional gender paradigms and rules, and think to break them.  If you profess to truly care about gender equality, stop and consider all that that means.  It means equality in the workplace, in schools, in speech, in representation, it also means image.  It means that men should be able to wear skirts and heels if they so choose and that women can wear baggy pants and have muscular features if they so choose.