Goldbloom acts as if only āWestern intellectualsā care about Orientalism, as if Japanese audiences didnāt criticize ATLA for mimicking the Japanese anime aesthetic while looking ātoo culturally Chinese,ā and as if the critical concept of Orientalism wasnāt developed by Edward Said (who was aware of how the āEastā was often misrepresented in the West due to his experience living in both worlds). Itās ironic that she is actually perpetuating Orientalism herselfātreating the West as analytical and capable of making such observations, while the East is supposedly too dense to notice and is apathetic about how it is (mis)represented.
Goldbloom relies on Sinophobic clichĆ©s to claim, without any evidence whatsoever, that ATLA is banned in China. She goes out of her way to frame this as a form of activism by twisting a dislike of Aang into something āanti-Tibetanā and deeply oppressive. She lies about the Chinese and trivializes the struggles of the Tibetans, all to uplift a fictional character. What makes it funnier is that all the Tibetan people Iāve talked to have mixed to negative feelings about Aang.
Itās ridiculous that she didnāt bother to do any actual research on whether ATLA was banned in China. She either heard that rumor from another idiot or simply made it up. The country has over a billion people and tens of millions in its diaspora, yet she still has the audacity to spread complete nonsense about it. Not only is ATLA widely available on mainland Chinese streaming platforms, but Chinese audiences tend to interpret the Air Nomads as being based on Shaolin monks rather than Tibetan monks. This makes sense, since Chinese influences on the Avatar world are dominant compared to the other cultural influences, we see very little of Air Nomad culture in the original series, and many aspects of Buddhist monastic traditions are universal rather than specific to Tibetan Buddhism.
The common assumption that Tibetan culture was the primary influence often stems from limited, stereotypical ideas about Tibet as a Shangri-La land. While post-ATLA canon made the influence more explicitly Tibetan (especially after they finally decided to hire a Tibetan cultural consultant), it was fairly limited in the original series because Bryke conducted barely any research into Buddhist monasticism when creating the Air Nomads. They have stated that the biggest inspirations for the Air Nomads were Hong Kong films such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Shaolin Soccer.
The process of finding a new Avatar among the Air Nomads is somewhat similar to the process of finding a new tulku in Tibetan Buddhism (most people unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism mistakenly believe this is only for finding the new Dalai Lama). There are also a few Air Nomad characters with Tibetan-inspired names, but āAangā is not a Tibetan nameāit is Chinese. He was named after the filmmaker Ang Lee (though I assume they used two Aās to make it look more āuniqueā). Before Bryke decided on a name for Aang, they actually used to call him āBuddha Boyā. Konietzko even compared Buddhist monks to hippies... which explains a lot about how the Air Nomads are portrayed.
The Air Nomadsā vegetarian lifestyle, yellow/orange robes, and martial arts training are also traits they share with Shaolin monks rather than Tibetan monks. This is not even getting into how the Air Nomad nuns address each other as āSisterā and āMotherā... which are terms only used by Christian nuns. Both Konietzko and DiMartino are white Americans raised in a culturally Christian country (I believe they both have Catholic backgrounds as well), so Christian influences permeate the franchise. ATLA incorporates aspects of Eastern philosophy, but in a largely superficial way. They function more as an aesthetic compared to the much deeper Christian themes.
The ATLA fandom has a shallow understanding of East Asian history in general because, while they frequently assume the Fire Nation is based on Imperial Japan (its material culture is actually more Chinese and Southeast Asian in the original series, though it becomes more overtly āJapan-likeā in post-ATLA material), they simultaneously claim that the Air Nomad genocide was based on the annexation of Tibet by the Peopleās Republic of China, despite Imperial Japan also attacking Buddhist institutions across its empire.
While the Fire Nationās genocide of the Air Nomads was probably based on the annexation of Tibet (because it is relatively well known in the West), Japanās anti-Buddhist policies are a closer match, even if this was likely unintentional on Brykeās part. China opposed religion because it viewed it as an oppressive system of hierarchies and superstitions that hindered the achievement of a communist society, whereas Japanās suppression of Buddhism was driven by its nationalist ideology of State Shinto, which viewed Buddhist ideas as too internationalist and opposed to militarism (and therefore too āweakā) in its vision of a Japanese supremacist empire.
Goldbloom makes completely false claims that disliking Aang is somehow undermining the Tibetan cause and that the CCP supposedly felt sooo threatened by ATLA that it banned the damn cartoon (when most people in China simply have no interest in it, and there are many anime series they consider superior in quality to ATLA, so why bother with it when it looks like a generic wuxia with a terrible dub?). She then acts as if people are wrong for being offended by non-celibate Buddhist monks inspired by Tibetan culture. It is not only Orientalist to depict Buddhist monastics as being non-celibate, but it is especially offensive to do so in the context of a Tibetan-inspired culture (you can read my additions on this reblogged post).
Not only is Goldbloom full of shit and shamelessly lying out of her ass, but she has also been called out by another M*iko shipper for being a chronic art reposter.
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
kianamaiart
romaincrisis
baratheonpilled
gracieabrams
