Hey so uh. I wanted to turn my rant on white people and writing from perspectives that they donât have any personal experience with into its own post so here it is. I might add onto this later, but for now I just wanted to have this here and separate from the original post.
Ok cool itâs 1am and Iâve had three glasses of sake so Iâm ready to talk to the white people who seem to have zoomed in on me saying âThis is a show made by white men I promise you itâs not as progressive as you thinkâ and completely disregarded the rest of the post where I talk about how white fans attack people from the cultures being ârepresentedâ for any criticisms of the show because you think I microaggressed you by mentioning white people in a less than positive light.
Before I get into it, hereâs my TLDR: Atla being made by white men is one of the many reasons the show isnât actually as progressive as people like to say it is. Itâs not the only reason, but it is a major one.
So yeah the first thing is, yes. I do think that atla being made by white people makes the show less progressive than people say it is.
And it is also tied to the whiteness of fandom spaces but idk how much Iâll talk about that because itâs 1am, Iâm buzzed and itâs not like Iâm getting graded on this, so I donât really care about structure rn. Best case scenario is a few people agree with me worst case is that white people continue to white people in my notes so like the stakes are low here.
Iâve talked about this in the past (but I donât think I have on this blog) about the confidence white people have in telling stories from the perspective of different demographics that they donât represent.
Hereâs the thing: I trust a person of color to write a story about a white character more than I trust a white person to write a story about a character of color. Why?
Well for starters, people of color get white narratives pushed down our throats all our lives, especially in western countries. I cannot speak as much for people of color living in non-western countries, but globalization has made this increasingly prevalent across the board.
This part is kinda copy pasted from a discussion I had about identity in my ethics class, but I think itâs relevant and much more coherent than I am rn:
âI think that being a person of color gives you a bit more perspective, because you grow up seeing stories and narratives of these fully fleshed out and nuanced people and characters whose experiences were nothing like your own. Essentially, growing up not being represented in the narratives being told and shared forces you to learn to relate to people very different from you from a very early age.
This is not to say we donât still hold prejudices. I still have blind spots and prejudices to unlearn of course, and I donât think our work is ever really finished there. But I think having that perspective early on meant that doing that work is a bit easier for people of color than for white people, who did see their experiences represented, and saw them represented consistently.
I remember taking a class where we were discussing literary theory and my professor mentioned that one of the common reasons that people resist learning literary theory is because âit ruins the pleasure of watchingâ, and that people have a hard time turning off that analytical part of their brain, and all of a sudden, they realize that their favorite show perpetuates really harmful racial stereotypes. I was really surprised when I heard that, because as a person of color I didnât realize white people could just âopt outâ of thinking critically of the media they consume.â
Growing up as a person of color in America specifically is growing up in a structure that you are simultaneously a part of and apart from. Â Thereâs this ideology of whiteness and the white experience as universal that permeates most facets of our existence that is only reinforced by white narratives and the establishment of things like âthe literary canonâ.
Existing as a person of color in a structure so fundamentally reliant and built upon whiteness means you internalize the ins and outs of that structure even if youâre not aware of it. We are not who the structure is built for, but we exist within it, so we learn to navigate it. But you are aware the entire time of who and what the structure upholds.
I donât trust the white showrunners to have that same deep understanding of cultures and societies outside of that white bubble, because that ideology of whiteness so insulates white people from any other culture. And the show runners prove that right in the way they cherry pick different parts of Indigenous American, East Asian and South Asian cultures without understanding the internal logic of those cultures. It did the same for Buddhism and Hinduism.
We also see how high of a regard they hold those cultures and their people in in things like the trivialization of Tibetan genocide and Lao Gai, the heavy reliance on South Asian cultures while making their two South Asian characters in the original series (the issues with LoK are outside of my scope bc I never got around to watching it but itâs got issues too) an Indian caricature and a hitman who is brutally killed. Or the blatant disrespect for the concept of the Third Eye and the show turning âthird eye tattoosâ into a symbol of senseless destruction rather than giving it the reverence and cultural context. Thereâs more and I know it, itâs just not coming to mind right now.
Thereâs the entirety of the Northern Air Temple episode, where the idea of âprogressâ is placed over preserving a culture and its artifacts. Yes, we are saddened by what has happened to the temple, but at the end, itâs Aang who âlearns a lessonâ, not the Mechanist.
You also see it in who is given depth and sympathy, and who is not. The show emphasizes nuance, but is quick to write off certain characters or concepts as âevilâ. It is telling who is given sympathy and redemption, and who is not. Fire nation soldiers and citizens were given more sympathy and were shown to be good people, while Hamaâs placed into a âsadistic old womanâ role.
Actually fuck it, letâs talk about Hama. Hama to me, is one of the greatest examples of the way whiteness colors (or erases color from tbh) the narrative of Atla. Hama was an Indigenous elder who had been imprisoned by colonizers and managed to escape, then lived in enemy territory for decades to try and avoid capture again. She invented a new form of bending survive.
The show, which makes a huge point about emphasizing how âno bending is inherently evilâ does a 180 and portrays bloodbending as if it is the most horrifying thing imaginable. Now do I think using people as meat puppets is great? No. But like any form of bending, the issue isnât with the bending itself, but with what itâs being used for. (Sidenote, bloodbending would be so useful for healing.) If you use metalbending to make a big ole sword and skewer people, the issue is in the use, not the form.
Hama represents a colonizerâs boogeyman: like alien movies, where the horror and stakes are in the fear of aliens doing to colonizers what colonizers did to Indigenous peoples, Hama represents the fear of a victim of colonialism and imperialism who plays by similar rules to the colonizer, and has a score to settle.
And isnât there such a tragedy in what happens at the end? Hama spent decades living in fear of being taken back to a Fire Nation prison and shutting herself off from her culture to stay safe, and when she finally is able to have a moment to reconnect with her culture and tries to teach Katara to survive the same way she has, sheâs thrown back in prison.
Compare Iroh to Hama: Iroh objectively, has done way worse things than Hama. The dude is a war criminal, and a warlord. We see him revel in the concept of taking Ba Sing Se in a flashback. The show originally was going to have a scene that revealed that Iroh was the one who burned down Jetâs village.
But the show gives him nuance, and heâs a sympathetic character. Heâs had a redemption arc before the show even begins (Which tbh Iâm not a fan of Irohâs implied redemption arc to begin with because the showâŚreally puts him in a weird place timeline wiseâwhen did he meet the dragons? Theyâre supposedly the ones who taught him to breathe fire but he âearnedâ that nickname while still serving as a general, so he met them while still actively aiding in imperialism. Are we supposed to assume that the dragons awarded a warmonger?âand never addresses that), and we root for him, despite the terrible things heâs done.
Hama isnât given that. Yes, we sympathize with her backstory, but the show maintains sheâs a bad person, and does not give her the opportunity to heal. Same with Jet: we see him begin to make amends, but his desire for redemption is cut short when heâs murdered.
Whiteness permeates the entire narrative. Yes, Asian people were brought in for things like the calligraphy and the martial arts to base the bending styles off of, but the show was created and written by white people. I donât think any Inuit or Indigenous South Americans were even consulted.
So yeah anyways Iâm tired so rant over but also choosing to ignore that a post is about racism in the atla fandom and focus instead on the brief criticism of white people is. wild.
