#ck meta

sam is generally one of my biggest offenders, since the costuming team seems to have either forgotten she is a teenager or they sincerely struggled to adapt to mary’s body type and potentially her weight gain due to her diabetes. (WHICH!! to make it clear, i am not shaming mary in anyway and will not tolerate it on this post please and thank you.)

so as a result, a lot of sam’s outfits are cute, but they read as a kid playing dress up in adult clothes on the best of days or flatout childish on others. the outfit im scrutinizing today reads more like the first than the latter. so welcome sam in S5EPS8/9, this is your day on trial.

YES. I completely agree. And as more time has gone by since Season 4 came out, I've noticed even the more casual fans have noticed. Someone took this screenshot from YouTube, but I've seen similar comments on reddit too.

And Kreese, being another master manipulator, knew exactly what he was doing when he brought up Daniel to Terry again in 4x01...

like yes future-soft-butch-sam-larusso-who-gets-her-first-buzz-cut-over-torys-sink is definitely coming from my noggin, but also sam-larussos-identity-as-expressed-through-clothing-is-very-vague-and-she-has-more-connection-with-tory-than-her-love-interests is not untrue, so she's very open to interpreting through the lens of the kind of girlhood that is put on her, rather than chosen by her

I keep thinking of who she is at the beginning of the show, when she's trying to fit in with the cool gang. she dresses "more sexily" and more femininely, and it's clearly a bit of a surprise to aisha, but then once she's excommunicated from that group, she seems stuck between blandly cutesy girl-clothes and callbacks to what her dad wore in the karate kid, and out of the two the latter seems more true to her character with her far more intense in-your-face-to-the-point-of-being-central-to-conflicts (just like her dad was, but that's also one of the Things about her -- to what extent do sam and daniel overlap and how does she distinguish herself from him)

and of course she's the only girl in a sea of boys taking karate, while obsessing over the rival girl from the other karate place, so how do those said-cutesy-girl-outfits fit in with the identity she's trying to form for herself as sitting between all these constraints of:

girl-but-incorrectly-so-due-to-non-acceptably-girly-pursuits-and-ugly-non-nice-girl-feelings

girl-in-all-boys-space

girl-who-is-closest-with-her-dad-and-is-considered-his-protege-and-he-was-also-in-some-ways-incorrectly-boy

girl-who-is-obsessed-with-another-girl

with all of this the expression to me feels like something that is asserting something bland on purpose. She Is A Girl. this distinguishes her from her dad, from the boys she trains with, even - perhaps (going wahaaay into hc territory again - from homosexuality, because the girl she is presenting as is a cute understated heterosexual-girlfriend-bring-home-to-your-parents-good-girl-definitely-doesn't-start-fights-with-girl-she-obsesses-over

of course she can't pretend for long, her personality is so intense, it breaks through any don't-notice-me personality-less clothing-and-expression she attempts

and then of course there's the fact that this isn't meant to be thought about that deeply in the show text. but this was the choices it went with, so I must poke at them, and I have to conclude that this is a smith college girl in the making (metaphorically, idk where she'd want to go to school in actuality, but she'll be circling the lgbt alliance for sure)

Something that struck me about the new Cobra Kai versus the Cobra Kai in the films -

Nearly every Cobra Kai member they focus on in the series is underprivileged. Hawk is disabled. Miguel is a poor boy whose family are immigrants. Tory is a fatherless poor caretaker of a sick mother and younger brother. Kenny is a poor black kid picked on by a bunch of rich white kids. Yes, there's Parker, but did he ever get his own episode? Aisha is a bullied black kid, though she's rich (which got her booted off the show).

The Miyagi Do's are the rich ones, the stable ones (no one we know of among them, other than Robby, has much hardship to overcome). Beautiful dojo and everything.

But that wasn't what the films were selling! The Cobra Kais were a group of mostly white preppy rich kids ganging up on one new poor kid, who, to some people in that Encino club, might still have counted as not-quite-white (if Aly was born around 1966, her parents will have been born around 1930-1940, and to those people, Daniel LaRusso would have been called a swarthy wop, guinea or dago by some people they grew up with, if they're too polite to use such language by 1983). Daniel definitely takes pains not to seem other to his environment even in 2018.

Sorry, but if your message is: "Cobra Kais are people too", why can't you simply try to win sympathy for preppy white kids? Why make Johnny into a blue collar worker? Nothing in his background suggests that. Why not make him a divorced, washed up, bankrupted investment banker? Why have Eli not simply be the vaguely Jewish kid who has trouble making friends? Really, if your whole raison d'être is "shitty rich kids are people too", why are you making it so that your protagonists are always fighting the rich kids? Who... aren't even shitty? Who did Samantha LaRusso ever hurt? And maybe there's Anthony, but he's barely in the show for three seasons.

Teaching poor kids to fight dirty because life can do you dirty is borderline justified. But The Karate Kid was about rich kids being taught to fight dirty and then taking all their advantages out on poor kids, because might makes right. Johnny, with his bike, and his preppy clothes, laughing at Daniel who has to sneak in through the kitchen to see his uptown girl. Chozen, the strong henchman to his insanely rich uncle, ganging up on the poor foreign boy. Terry Silver, making business deals with career fighter Mike Barnes. Humanise that all you like - but we also see what that looks like in the films, and that's Aly. The rich girl who really likes this new sweet kid, and doesn't care his mother is probably too outspoken for her parents' liking, and doesn't care her girlfriends don't much care for him. Aly, who is nothing but polite to Mr. Miyagi (compare that to Terry Silver's openly racist taunts), and only breaks up with Daniel when he jumps to conclusions (once about the class difference, another time when he was openly jealous about her talking to other guys). Show why, as taught by Johny, Cobra Kai 2.0 is good for those kids, or indeed show Johnny figuring out why it isn't and trying to make a change.

No, I think I get what you're saying. The movies for sure had a sort of formula that they went by. And that's not a bad thing. The very basic concept of the movies is pacifism, reaching out to people, trying to find common ground. That toxic masculinity is dangerous, and that force should be a last resort. That fighting was for honor, to protect themselves or others, when they were given no other choice.

The fight scenes in s1 and s2 seem more plausible. (School wide smack down excludes) They make more sense in the story.

But I think what happened was that when the show got bigger, and the budget got bigger, and the scope got bigger, and the new fans were wanting something exciting, and johnjoshhayden wanted to revel in badassery.

But amongst the spectacle and the Netflix money they lost the point of the story they were trying to tell, which was about the personal relationships affected by CK. It was a very small, private story.

It was Daniel and Johnny. Dealing with the legacies of their mentors. How their teaching shaped them in various ways.

And with the shift in s3 things became more about this sort of theoretical war between good and bad. And it seems obvious given the original media who the "bad" would be. And they started with that, and then dropped it. They never actually say who is good or bad. And moral ambiguity is not a bad thing for the story, and could have been done in a smart, empathetic way.

But johnjoshhayden have always related to Johnny and thought he was badass. And Johnny was CK. Which meant that CK was bad ass. And so they didn't want to commit to the whole "good/bad" dichotomy.

And so the show went from a character study to an action/comedy show. But also it started getting progressively more mean spirited towards Daniel and miyagi-do, for the sake of "shades of grey."

The problem is that's not the story of the TKK movies. That's not their message.

Like, johnjoshhayden can make whatever show they want to, but that's not just their show. it's connected to a franchise that already has a set universe, a set ethical code.

They already answered the question "is CK bad?" And the answer was yes.

And so, in a way it's sort of revisionism. Like. That feels like a big word for a silly karate show but that's the best I can think of.

Specifically I am thinking of how they brought Ali back in s3 and had her very vocally say "you were both equally bad. And also some of it was my fault."

When in the movie it could not be more clear that it was unprompted aggression.

They don't seem to be interested in redemption anymore because they think he did nothing wrong in the first place.

They have created a world where violence is in fact the answer, and they're writing around it to try to make it work within the logic of a famously pacifistic franchise.

make note i only used the colors of the original MMPR  seasons (red, blue, black, yellow, pink and the options green and white). based on both of my posts with CK characters (TEENS) (ADULTS)

RED: usually, in PR lore, red is team leader. while this fits miguel to a tee, it might not johnny, but CK is about johnny’s journey to become a leader. most seasons of PR have someone who is impulsive and rash, maybe selfish who grows into a team leader, which is johnny’s arc. both miguel and johnny are brave, dedicated, high-spirited, stubborn, sometimes too impulsive or irrational, passionate. they also the characters who have the most growth from beggining to end as the shows dedicate reds a lot of time.

BLUE:  blue rangers are often two things; one butt heads with reds for leadership or ideas, and/or second in command. they are loyal, focused and a source of conscience, they are experimental and they are highly adaptable. both daniel and hawk had shown to adapt easily to different styles and had grown to be second in command of their respective teams. while miguel and hawk never butted heads per say, they did had a fall out when they alligned in different dojos. and daniel and johnny, we all know the deal. blues are also some of the characters who have the greatest spiritial growth.

BLACK: black is mysterious. while in our concept black is associated with void, darkness, in power rangers, black rangers are often those who dare to be different, cool, confident,  determinated, and well, masculine in the traditional way. mike barnes fits all of those bills, specially the barnes we meet in season 5. and he is still mysterious, because we haven’t seen him in a long time. they might not get the credit they deserve but PR has some famous black rangers who stand up by their uniqueness and growth (zack, adam muah.)

YELLOW:  yellow rangers are often both cheery, the stand out, smart, creative, and the ones to motivate the team when they are down. they represent sometimes the struggle to go from one side to the other and mantain their strength, sometimes they might struggle with their place in a team. amanda and tory are both that, which is why amanda took such kindship to tory in s4. amanda is a motivator, in the dealership and in season five. tory is smart, creative and a stand out, but struggles with her place in the world. 

PINK: we associate pink with feminism. it’s beyond that, as we have rangers who are more bold and less feminine in the traditional sense (muah jen from time force). but pink rangers represent sweetness and sensitivity, kindship, loyalty too, due to their more feminine nature, they might struggle with a place in a group of fighters but they chose to fight their fights in less conventional ways. pinks are also voices of reason to their teams. guidence nature. both kumiko and sam had shown to be that to many people as well being fierce warriors each in unique ways, kumiko was ready to fight chozen in tkk2 and defend daniel and sam is all of the above.

WHITE: sometimes as sixth rangers. last resort, a wild card at times, a complementary force to make the team stronger when in time of need. chozen is exactly that. it’s a color of freedom and liberation. in canon the first time we saw a white ranger was the unique transformation of tommy from green to white, from a color associated with the evil side to white, a light. first time we see chozen in CK he had gone through his own green-white arc, a path of honor and to defend those. white rangers are unique as there isn’t many as the sixth ranger varies in color by team. but they are always there to make the team grow which chozen does.

GREEN: like white rangers, they are often the sixth ranger. more often than not, specially in the example of the first green ranger, tommy oliver, they are powerhouss of characters, both in strength and in audience grip. robby is both, we have seen him as one of the best fighters from the kids side. sometimes second in command of their teams like in MMPR, they go through tremendous hardhips to earn their spot as part of the team. tommy had his evil green arc before he became part of the team and robby had his s3-s4 arc as cobra kai before he became miyagi-do again and became to redeem like tommy did.

i could honestly write so much more, and i guess, if i had to add more colors to other muses, demetri might be blue too or maybe purple. but i was going with the original color alignment.