In case you were not tired of “Iggy freestyles” macros (I AM NOT AND I NEVER WILL BE), there is now a Tumblr dedicated to showcasing the best of them.
“Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are.”
I hated the way cops treated me.
But I knew police weren’t all bad. One of my father’s closest friends was a cop. He became a mentor to me and encouraged me to join the force. He told me that I could use the police’s power and resources to help my community.
So in 1994, I joined the St. Louis Police Department. I quickly realized how naive I’d been. I was floored by the dysfunctional culture I encountered.
I won’t say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist.
One example: A couple of officers ran a Web site called St. Louis Coptalk, where officers could post about their experience and opinions. At some point during my career, it became so full of racist rants that the site administrator temporarily shut it down.
I think this is as close as I will ever get to successfully updogging someone. I do not believe that Racist Ed will ever write me back.
*
Which Kwanzaa Principle Are You?
Should you want to talk some more about Serial, Natasha Vargas-Cooper interviewed Jay Wilds this week.
Vice videos are quite often ridiculous, but this one is primarily tracking shots of frozen waterfalls and enormous men wearing jeans and hurling cars about, which is honestly more than you can expect from the universe on a given day.
I cannot get mad at this guy, because he is out there GETTING HIS. He is a beautiful monster and I hope he makes a billion dollars and never cries or falls in love.
Even though experts like Dan Shaw, Nassim Haramein, Becker and Hagens, Sanderson and the Russians have all conducted research on Ley Lines, mainstream science does not formally acknowledge their existence or influence.
Could this be due to a more hidden agenda? One seeking to keep such knowledge from the public?
Since research into such arenas is unsupported by mainstream funding, it will be difficult to determine the full potential of Ley Lines. If indeed there are subtle energies along the Earth’s Ley Line grid, what possible ways might a conscious humanity harness this power for the greater good? Until support and research funding become available, we may never know.
It could be, you know? It could be due to a more hidden agenda.
Ahhhhhhh, have we talked about Korrasami yet? HOW SICK ARE YOU of after-the-fact Word of God confirmations of gay and bi characters? I don’t blame DiMartino or any of the LoK staff, since it sounds like they were prevented from confirming the relationship any more overtly by studio executives, but it is deeply irritating. Not like, final-abortion-clinic-closing-in-Texas irritating, but irritating. They had to do that shit with Xena. I was still playing with Pogs when that show went off the air! I DEMAND THAT MARCELINE AND PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM MAKE OUT IMMEDIATELY TO ASSUAGE MY QUEER IRE.
We managed to successfully updog someone over Christmas. Matt and I were talking about how updog has made this resurgence and my friend walks in and GENUINELY ASKS “what’s updog?” and he got to respond and holy hell it was a Christmas miracle.
I got 100% of my Facebook friends who were really into Ello.
How do you choose a heroine among that pile of awesome on that Kwanzaa quiz? HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?
Is it wrong that I chose Angela Davis because I love her hair? Because really, HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?
I mean, I chose Zora because of hat + that photo, always, forever + also, there’s a restaurant dedicated to her in my neighborhood that I eat at waaaaay too often
I know this isn’t the open thread, but I’ll be out of town for a few days so I’m asking anyway: New Year’s is the big holiday where I am and starting tomorrow I’m off until the 12th with basically no obligations. Does anyone have any reading suggestions they want to share? Preferably nothing too emotionally devastating. I know we talked about multigenerational novels the other week in the open thread and I’ll take any suggestions on those if anyone has any. Or anything! Anything at all!
It’s not multi-generational, but I’m almost halfway through Middlemarch right now, and if you like sprawling classics with minute observations about human behavior, you might like it!
I was going to recommend All The Light We Cannot See, because it’s on my mind and it’s a perfect gem of a book, but it wrecked me and I cried like an absolute baby, so maybe not that.
Have you read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn? It’s not a true multigenerational novel but it goes into depth into the experiences of both the mother and the daughter and their relationship with one another. (It is my favourite book so I am duty-bound to recommend it at all times.) I really loved Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please, which I just finished. Other than that I have been reading consistently youth fiction for like three months now so I’m all out of suggestions.
I can only handle YA right now. I really enjoy the Artemis Fowl series, even though there aren’t enough women. Also I’ve just started the Septimus Heap books and they seem nice too.
The Truth-Teller’s Tale, by Sharon Shinn, is my go-to peaceful read. I have a hard time explaining why I like it so much, but I do.
And one of my all-time favorite books ever is The Martian, by Andy Weir. It’s suspenseful: guy gets stranded on Mars and tries to survive. I won’t tell you if he makes it or not, because that’d spoil everything. I love science fiction, especially with a healthy dose of science and characters who have some life of their own instead of being author mouthpieces (brb gonna build a time machine and go punch Heinlein in the dick).
I don’t know if SF is your thing, but whenever someone asks for a book rec, I try to jump out of hiding and scream THE MARTIAN!
Just finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Chapters are in different voices: Mother and each of 4 daughters. The daughters’ voices change as they grow up. Mom’s voice did, too, as she matured through crises. I found that aspect very enjoyable, satisfying, interesting. And I don’t usually enjoy novels. I recommend this one.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It’s a commitment, but it’s so gorgeously plotted and densely written I haven’t stopped pondering it for months. Bonus points for being centered in old-world Gold Rush era New Zeland, which is a historical blind spot that I never knew anything about (I didn’t even know a Gold Rush in that region had ever existed), so that’s pretty fascinating.
Have you tried Pillars of the Earth or World Without End? They’re sweeping and take a toll on you, but they aren’t devastating, I don’t think. World Without End takes place in the same town about 200 years after Pillars and some of the characters are distantly related, but you don’t need to read them in any order.
I am enjoying The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Thanks for all of the recommendations! Some I’ve read already and some I will be looking up on Overdrive tonight.
I LOVE WATCHING STRONG MAN COMPETITIONS! I didn’t even KNOW that Vice had done an episode on them… bookmarking for later. I know these guys are scarily strong, but for some reason they look so cuddly too. I just want to wrap them in a (large) crocheted blanket and hand them a (huge) cup of tea and binge watch Outlander with them.
yessss. The whole gentle cuddly giant thing, I am not not into it a lot. I want an Icelandic strongman boyfriend.
There is something about a man pulling a school bus with his teeth that knocks me from a Kinsey 6 down to a 4 or so. Don’t understand it, and don’t care to probe. I just really like gigantic men doing feats of giganticality.
So agree with the after-the-word confirmations. Dumbledore’s gay, you say? Well, YOU COULD HAVE PUT THAT IN THE BOOK, JK. I mean, sure some people are great at interpreting hints, but why not just go for it?
Something I like — and I have trouble not defending the Avatar guys, since A:TLA is my favorite show — is this piece of Konietzko’s response:
“Was it a slam-dunk victory for queer representation? I think it falls short of that, but hopefully it is a somewhat significant inching forward.”
I liked Konietzko’s post about it more than DiMartino’s (which is the one Mallory posted). I particularly liked when he called out compulsory heterosexuality (“If it seems out of the blue to you, I think a second viewing of the last two seasons would show that perhaps you were looking at it only through a hetero lens”) and specifically mentioned bisexuality regarding these characters.(“Despite what you might have heard, bisexual people are real!”).
In general, I’d rather read something Konietzko wrote and watch something DiMartino wrote. I’m consistently impressed by Bryan’s honesty and frankness. It’s great that such a lauded showrunner would admit to missteps.
I really haven’t seen much of Korra but it seems a little less of an afterthought than the Dumbledore thing? TV studios have different standards than books, especially for what’s ostensibly children’s TV, and the studio had the veto power here, not the creators. I read another interview somewhere that they weren’t sure the studio would let them go there at all, so they tried to express it as best they could without crossing any lines, and then they made a statement to fans immediately after the fact. That seems a little less dismissive than what Rowling did, just tossing it out there ages later.
On the bright side for English professors, this means I will never again have a difficult time finding an example of the intentional fallacy!
Yeah, very much agree with that. You maybe get minimal credit for being all ‘one my main characters was gay!’ When you just wrote a ~4000 page series with no queer characters whatsoever. So far as anyone can tell, they don’t exist in that world.
Korra was much more satisfying, but still left something to be desired. Definitely agree that I’m willing to cut those folks a lot of slack because the world they created is just mindblowingly amazing and addresses so many issues so well and if kids only watched shows like LoK and A:TLA everyone would grow up to be lovely considerate feminists. Sure, they’d be lovely considerate feminists with a deep aching melancholy inside over the fact that they can’t fly, but nothing is perfect.
Regarding Dumbledore, I’ve heard it said that “Oh, but they didn’t have anything about anyone else’s sex life in there either. They’re chidren’s books :/ ” But like, the last book was not significantly taken up by a tell-all book called The Life and Lies of Minerva McGonagall!!!?! And JK is now saying the same thing about Seamus and Dean, trying to suggest more queer visibility in the series than there actually was. Like, you could have put that stuff in when it would have made a difference, it comes off as a bit ‘Too Late the Hero’ now. Sorry for rant, I am v. sore at JK for doing this; do it when it matters, not when you’re looking for kudos years later
Recently it turns that there were Jewish and Muslim students at Dumbledore too. Mm hmm. Not like with names or stories or even mentions in the text, but yeah, just so you know, representation matters to j k Rowling, after the fact.
I am self-determination, folks. Although I think they might have been funning me at the carol choice.
I like how the ley lines thing includes “the Russians” among their list of experts. Which Russians? Doesn’t matter, they’re all experts on ley lines.
Yes, since Russia is such a small place, no need to distinguish among Russians.
TOASTIES I AM BACK FROM SWITZERLAND. I missed you all. I hope everyone who asked for a Christmas card received it! I had a great time, although the past 2 days were very harrowing (tl;dr: one delayed flight led to missing another flight, neither airline deemed it necessary to refund us any money whatsoever, we ended up having to replace the missed flight with THREE flights and paying full last-minute fare).
Now I am actually going to read these links and all the posts I missed out on while I was gone.
Welcome back 🙂
Glad you’re back, safe and sound.
The best Iggy meme is the one that ends with “actually it’s about ethics in gaming journalism” because I cackled at my desk yesterday when I read that one.
I’d be more upset about the Korrasami non-reveal if I didn’t feel like Bryan and Mike had genuinely tried as much as possible to make it obvious text.. Nickelodeon did not want the show to be seen, and I can only imagine how much pushback there was on it even though it was only airing online rather than on TV.
Now back to enjoying the Korrasami fan art and increasingly amazing Iggy memes on Tumblr (personal favorite: the Kevin G rap from Mean Girls).
Everyone I know with a family member in law enforcement or really any civil service (fire, postal, garbage, sewer, animal control, highway mowing…) has gone psychotically defensive of cops since the whole Ferguson thing broke. You can’t disagree with the actions of any cop without personally shitting on their spouse/father/son/what have you. It’s tiresome, and kind of pathetically insecure. It also makes me wonder what they’re hiding, which does not help their case.
My uncle and two of my cousins are cops and I just…I can’t with them. They’re all hidden on Facebook because jfc I can’t take the vitriol they’re spitting, but you know SOMEONE will notice if we’re not friends anymore. I try not to get too political on FB but it’s pretty obvious which side I’m supporting if you know anything about me (protip: not theirs) but ugh, they’re all Cops Are Great These People Are Thugs Can’t You Tell? What Do You Mean I’m Racist?
Ugh, for real. “If they’re not all like that, then why don’t the ones who aren’t speak up against it?” I asked, immediately before being unfriended.
Ugh, I’m so sick of that shit. I have quite a few friends and family members who are either police officers or in the military, or who are married/related to someone who is, and it’s made me avoid facebook lately. I got an invite to a #PoliceLivesMatter event the other day which pissed me off to no end. I finally did say something to the person who sent the invite and told her how offensive and disrespectful she was being. She didn’t respond, so I’m hoping that means she feels bad and is too embarrassed to admit it? But it probably just means she thinks I’m a bitch who doesn’t care about her brother’s life.
Not me. My mother’s brother is a cop and he’s disgusting; I’ve felt uneasy around him all my life (I don’t remember this, but apparently my mom had to bribe to get me to hug him when I was little). A few years ago he actually PULLED HIS TEN YEAR OLD SON OUT OF SCHOOL and registered him at a private one because he found out the kid’s homeroom teacher that year was going to be an openly gay man.
I won’t go into detail, but some of the things I’ve heard him say about women and blacks are unbelievable. (He’s NYPD, just for the record. )
Dear lord. That viral content guy is the human representation of so much of what I despise about the internet and tech culture right now. My skin will be crawling for the rest of the day.
Okay, yes, this article made me fear for the future of humankind and the English language, but I AM SO HAPPY because now I know where those terrible, terrible headlines come from. “She falls down at the end of every race. What happens next broke me.” (with a video link)
I was angry for weeks because of that stupid headline – “Broke me? BROKE ME?!?! How the hell does a video break you? How does that work? Is it a cursed video, where the falling-down woman emerges from your screen and just snaps you in two? Does your mind just – snap?”
So, I’m glad this article explains the logic ( the algorithms!) behind all of those stupid, rage-inducing headlines that make no grammatical sense – because now I know that it’s all highly engineered – not designed to make sense, just designed to get your attention. I’m not happy about it, but being educated about it makes it less horrible to encounter.
YES. Nonsensical algorithmically-honed clickbait link titles are so annoying. Other related examples: links with preview images that have a red circle centered just outside the frame that actually don’t actually circle anything; titles like “22 [X] You Have To See To Believe … #14 Blew My Mind!”
STOP STOP STOP UGH
The ley lines webpage is just a 404 error for me… further proof of the massive global conspiracy of silence surrounding ley lines?
It could be!
I managed to read the article, but the link in the comments to the man who had written a book about them turned out to be a blank page. I think he has definitely suffered from the forces of suppression.
Naw. He’s just become one with the Arizona Vortexes.
I want to be an ancient explorer. It sounds like it means something.
Read this excellent discussion of The Handmaid’s Tale and it’s continued relevance on The Verge yesterday. Is a week old, so hopefully hasn’t already been posted, but thought others might enjoy: http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/20/7424951/does-t…
Tldr: it’s not the actual dystopia which make it so chilling, since the politics and religion of the book do feel very much of-their-time (though its feminist specificity makes it more immediately affecting than, say, 1984). It’s the fear that you might lose your rights, and the men around you in your life just wouldn’t care.
I read it when I was probably too young and forgot almost everything about it, but it was that element of it specifically that cemented itself in my brain.
I UPDOGGED MY FATHER AND IT WAS GLORIOUS. The results were so pleasingly Dadlike.
Before texting me back, he tracked down my sister (sworn to secrecy) to ask her what it was AND left an amazingly weary and bewildered voice mail on my phone. “Hi, it’s your Dad. I got your message, but I don’t know … what it is, what it means. What Updog means. Please call me.”
Moral of the story is troll your Dad all you want, he’ll still send you unsolicited money.
Woah that is huge, so many apologies.
Slightly off-form; the traditional response is “Not much, dog, what’s up with you?”
But I suspect your Dad would have been equally bewildered either way.
Right you are! Including “dog” in the response gives up the gag immediately, though; in this case, I opted for a departure from traditional form to win myself several extra seconds of dad-puzzling (“Why is she telling me how she is instead of what updog is?”). I considered it a worthwhile sacrifice.
Dad puzzling!
I really, really want to updog my dad, but I KNOW he would reply, “What is that?” which ruins the set-up.
He’ll find out next year when it shows up in Dad Magazine.
So I know this wouldn’t be a good idea, and I don’t want these people to get any sort of recognition or attention, but… but I sorta want there to be a reoccurring thing where The Toast posts its worst rejected comments of the month with eviscerating commentary from Mallory. I know wanting it is wrong, but I can’t help myself. I’m weak.
Also, WHAT. DiMartino confirmed that?! Oh jeez I dunno how to feel about that. I think I’m annoyed? Like, if you’re going to do that ambiguous (and I thought pretty darn awesome) ending, then leave it at that? Also I’m torn between wanting them to be queer and wanting there to be a show that ends with the protagonists going, ‘welp, my love interest was a bit of a drip. That dude is now irrelevant and in the rear view mirror. Hey, friend that I love dearly, let’s go have some adventures!’
Actually, now that I think of it I kinda liked the ambiguity for that reason. Maybe they went and had adventures and also made out, which is awesome, or maybe they just went and had adventures and the last moment in the show was about celebrating the love and companionship between friends, which is also pretty awesome. Will now stop because I realize I have way too many feelings about the Avatar universe and this is getting long.
Heavily implied queer relationship with word of god support > “ambiguity” that allows the straight viewers to feel comfortable believing that the characters are heterosexual. If given the choice, I’ll take a romance between women over a friendship any day of the week.
Yeah, you’re right.
I guess I just wanted this ending to do everything at once as far as things-I-want-to-see-more-of-in-my-media goes. I get bummed out by how often non-sexual love/friendship is basically treated as something to tide you over until your love interest appears. Oof, like the last ten minutes of Obvious Child where her awesome friend who has been there for her the whole dang movie literally disappears the moment the dude shows up. So I’m excited by the idea of a show, which has established love interests, ending with a friendship being affirmed as the protagonist’s most meaningful relationship.
But that’s a separate issue and as far as things there aren’t enough of on TV, romantic relationships between women clearly takes the cake and hedging is a bad move. I retract all support for ambiguity; that was dumb. And I really like Korra and Asami together romantically. I was just so excited in the moment I sorta didn’t care which it was because, whatever was happening, it was totally Korra-Asami centered. And I had still been blithely assuming there’d be a super frustrating last minute ‘and then she winds up with that dude’ thing.
Anyways, to end this babble back where I started, yes, you’re right and what I said about ambiguity was silly.
I get bummed out by how often non-sexual love/friendship is basically treated as something to tide you over until your love interest appears.
this TOTALLY 100% ruined an otherwise awesome Girl Meets World episode where Shawn came back to hang out with Corey & Topanga and the kids and which was otherwise a celebration of this lifelong bestfriendship non-romantic life partnership between the two guys (and Topanga). The “happy ending” of the episode was all about the girl convincing Shawn that he needs to be in a romantic relationship also, that he can’t be happy off traveling doing adventures without a wife, and that it’s wrong for him to be jealous that Corey now has kids that take up his time.
Urgh the worst! Yeah, it’s exactly that apparent need to make clear there is a hierarchy of relationships, and the romantic one is forever at the top, that’s so annoying. Couldn’t just say, ‘hey look at the love these two friends share’ without throwing in ‘but THIS love over here is even beautifulER! You should go get some, because the love with smooches involved crushes your puny friend love.’ Bleh. Not to knock love-with-smooches, but still, it’s not the only game in town.
In conclusion, harumph bah humbug, sometimes things are irksome.
I’ve been recently re-watching Xena and it was *way* less subtle than I remember it being. It’s fantastic.
Yeah, I just watched it this year, and by the end it is very explicit that they are turning down men because they have each other to co-parent and exclaim about their love at random moments.
As someone who desperately wanted Xena with Ares, believe me the whole Xena / Gabrielle thing was not in the least subtle to me.
This has just made me happy!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/…
OMG if Kate Beaton joined up with the Toast I would have to expire of happiness. God, I love her so much.
I second the idea of hiring Kate Beaton as house illustrator.
Also: lol at all the men decrying Lindy’s use of language as “juvenile” in the comments. Suck it, dudes. She’s writing for the guardian (because she’s funny and insightful and great in many ways), and you, old chap, are not.
I have proposed EXACTLY THIS in Toast comments before (as, I imagine, have many others. It’s the only sane thing to want in this crazy world). Why haven’t we started a petition yet? Why aren’t Harkavagrant and The Toast already doing whatever the website version of full on making out is??
Ugh, there are so many bitter dismissive arseholes who immediately jump on any of Lindy West’s and Jessica Valenti’s pieces in the Guardian, it’s infuriating. On the other hand, suck it dudes, a funny feminist is writing stuff and getting published and probably paid more than you, sooo…
And now it made me happy too! Yaaaay!
My plan for the new year is to spend a couple of minutes every day listening to Benedict Cumberbatch mispronouncing “penguin.” Joy abounding.
It’s been like two weeks and I am still pretty mad that all Korra and Asami were allowed to do is hold hands. LIke, it was obvious the network didn’t want more than that, but I don’t care.
Can someone fill me in on the Iggy Azalea Freestyling Incident? I keep hearing about it and seeing the memes but I missed the actual thing.
https://vine.co/v/OHZO5ewql26
it’s too embarrassing, i can’t even watch this Vine of it
I can’t load vines! And KnowYourMeme is blocked at work.
(I disabled vines entirely because I was tired of endless looping on Tumblr unless I shrunk the window)
Any chance of more explanation? xoxo
This, I guess? I had to look it up because I haven’t kept up with Iggy news lately or ever.
“In a recently unearthed video from 2013, Azalea stopped by the Sway in the Morning radio show to spit some rhymes. But when host Sway asked her to freestyle, she said she couldn’t rap anything to the “hood ass beat” provided and opted to do some a cappella. There’s only one problem: What she sang turned out to be a cut from her track “New Bitch” that had already been recorded.”
http://mic.com/articles/107332/the-internet-is-ca…
Oh My God, I just finally clicked on the New Yorker piece about the guy who makes things go viral and saw his name and freaked because MUGGLENET YOU GUYS.
SO MANY YEARS AND HOURS OF MY CHILDHOOD.
I need to go read it now, but fucking Emerson, man.
oh my god I totally forgot about that guy.
…reading now.
Oh, it’s THAT Emerson?!
Exactly! I had no idea!
I KNOW. I just opened the article, saw “Emerson Spartz,” and my brain just flipped. Had to scroll down to see “MuggleNet,” but YEAH. Emerson! Is this what you’re up to these days, after wrecking so much havoc in the HP fandom…
OK, the worst thing about the viral content guy is that in ten or fifteen years he’s going to have a midlife crisis epiphany about, I dunno, “Jesus” or “simplifying his life” or “values” or something, and then we’ll all have to listen to him go on about THAT as if he just invented something. Cause that’s the life cycle of the baby tycoon.
Kids. Get offa my lawn.
He’s going to rewrite all the holy books using his propietary algorithm:
This beautiful man had never seen pain or death. His first walk outside broke him.
Peacemaker? You won’t believe what He says about you!
They can’t say His name. After this video, you won’t either.
99% of people get this simple fact about Vishnu wrong!
SEVEN ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT FLYING YOGIS
EMERSON SPARTZ!!! My early-00s nerd crush *hearts-for-eyes emoji*
Thank god I’m not the only one. He sounds like a major douche now.
“experts like the russians”
Which Russians?
Oh, all of them. They start teaching ley lines in kindergarten.
Y’ALL I was re-watching the first season of Korra to soak in all the glory after the official announcement and basically shit myself in the episode where they stay at Asami’s estate? When Asami takes Korra for a drive in one of the Satomobiles?
“Korra: That was amazing! I didn’t think we’d make it.
Asami: (fluffing her hair) Well, you can’t be afraid to mix it up sometimes.”
WEEP.
So we (myself and my 3,5,7 boys) are just finishing up the first Avatar series this week and, while the story has been pretty good, we (wife and I) were more than a little bummed by the lack of diversity in a show supposedly focusing on it (or something?)…is Korra any better in this regard?
I mean I haven’t read up on this too much but according to an overview piece on the Daily Dot:
“One of the things you may notice when you start to watch Avatar is that there are no white characters on the show… Avatar creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino have said in interviews that they were influenced by Hayao Miyazaki, but the very core of the show, from fighting styles, town designs, and the very culture of the four nations, is greatly influenced by Asian and Native American cultures. The Water Tribe is mainly based on Inuit, Yupik, and Sireniki Eskimo cultures; the Fire Nation takes its cues from Imperialist China; the Air Nomads from the Tibetan culture, Buddhism and Hinduism; and the Earth Kingdom from China with Korean influences. Many of the nods are from different time periods as well.”
All of that remains true in Korra and that seems like a pretty respectable amount of diversity to me? I could be off-base though! I also think that Korra, aside from its diverse characters, does an impressive job focusing on acceptance and peaceful co-existence. The villains are mainly villains because of their hatred and their intolerance for people different from them, and the show really celebrates the unique skills and cultures that everyone brings to the table. None of the bending tribes is shown to be as more useful or stronger or better than the others, and the non-bending characters are also totally capable of holding their own.
I wonder if that piece was written by a white author? One of the things my wife (black) immediately noticed/commented on, was that even the characters that were supposedly to be non-white…well, many of them still look pretty pale. Very little brown, you know? Most of the kids (except Zuko and eventually Suki, and Iroh) are (I think) voice acted by white actors – not that kids can perceive that but, you know, it can be telling. Definitely Asian culture inclusion – but maybe it’s just the exclusion of the darker people that’s so glaring?
I do definitely enjoy the focus on violence NOT being the answer. I’ve had lots of great conversations with my boys about emotions and how various characters deal with them, so I think the show definitely has lots of positives. As a parent of black kids though there’s…I dunno, American culture is kind of a mine field of casual racism and exclusionism, you know?
Oh yeah I definitely feel that. In Legend of Korra, the protagonist (Korra herself) is definitely darker than the characters on Avatar but overall you’re dealing with a lot of the same skin tones. I can’t speak for the creators but luckily one of the creators spoke for himself about whitewashing concerns in the series ( http://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/54495619739… ), particularly about the choices for Katara and Aang’s children and some of the artistic elements that contribute to the effect. It’s definitely not perfect (the primarily white voice cast is shitty to say the least) but I take some comfort from the fact that they seem to be taking it pretty seriously, as they do with their depiction of female characters and gender roles.
That’s a neat post, thanks!
I have definitely been impressed/thankful with Avatar’s treatment of gender (and roles) thus far. Hearing that it had some at least kinda more present Q themes/characters in the Korra volume is also encouraging.
With no sisters for my (5) boys, I’m extra wary of the female images they consume. It’s also encouraging to see that Korra is darker! I haven’t done much looking into that show yet because I don’t want to spoil it. I have to admit, I wasn’t able to avoid the way the ending was blasted all over the internet, and am just trying to forget the bits I heard.
The Avatar universe is basically limited to analogues of Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Inuit cultures, so you’re not going to see any real racial diversity beyond that. There are some more darker skinned people in Legend of Korra, notably Korra herself. I think the show is still doing good on the diversity front given the givens, what with perfect being the enemy of the good in this case. Also, both series have been pretty good in addressing disability and trauma.
FWIW though, I think Korra is a much more teen-oriented show than A:tLA. I’d wait on showing it to your kids given their ages, not because it’s full of inappropriate stuff or anything, but just because I’m not sure what younger kids will be able to get out of Korra. A lot of stuff would be going way over their heads.
I get that – but it’s kind of problematic.
I mean, you have a whole world with analogues for everyone (plenty of people look white even if their inspiring culture is not)…except those of African decent. No very curly hair. No dark brown skin. Especially since it seems to be set in an entire world (albeit a super tiny one) – and not just some corner of the world, where other kinds of people could ostensibly exist elsewhere. So a brown kid might ask – where are the people that look like me in that world?
An Invisible Grid Stretches Across Our Planet. What It Does Will Amaze You.
–Or it might, if they ever bothered to explain exactly what they think it does. The article’s a little hazy on that detail.
“An energy, according to Plato, which literally holds the Earth together.”
Oh, well then. I guess that’s pretty amazing, all right. Also the energy apparently tells us where to put cathedrals and giant stone heads, which is handy. Fortunately it seems that building a giant cathedral on the energy lines does not cause the Earth to fall apart. This is probably why Plato never tried to verify his theory experimentally.
“Why is this important? Because if the Earth emits energy along specific lines and cross-point which can be harnessed by humans, those aware of this power are at a distinct advantage over those who remain ignorant.”
A distinct advantage, no doubt about it. It’s just so obvious how advantageous this knowledge would be, there really is no need to go into too many specifics. For example, you could charge your phone using Stonehenge, or destroy the Earth, whatever.
OMG the law and order SVU Iggy freestyle aaaaaaaaaack
OK what am I missing with this? I am so out of the loop on the coolness and making fun of dumbness. I know who she is, and have (let’s say “a collection of”) issues with her, but I missed wherever and however this particular path was blazed.
oh I don’t know anything about it (although someone posted a cringe-inducing Vine of her freestyling above), I just enjoy the idea of a world in which, when Iggy Azalea (or anyone, really) was asked to freestyle, she would think that repeating the Law & Order SVU tagline thingy was an appropriate response
I SEE JAY HAS CHANGED HIS STORY YET AGAIN.
I KNOW.
Still want to read part two though because I have no willpower.
While I am totally pissed off it had to be word-of-god-ed, I’m with you on not blaming them but the network. Also, the fact that so many sites ran with it before they spoke up does show that they were pretty successful on making it implied but not really all that ambiguous, right? Like, that counts for at least a little.
More to the point: I have shipped it since like two episodes after they met, AND I FEEL SO VINDICATED RIGHT NOW, it is a GLORIOUS power trip.
I honestly thought there was pretty much zero ambiguity in that final scene, and that confirmations weren’t necessary at all, although after seeing some of the comments online I can see why they made them. And I TOTALLY feel you on the vindication, and yes, it is wonderful.
Just wanna share this Korra finale reaction vid , which is one of the most adorable and charming things I’ve ever seen.
Wow. I hadn’t seen that. Thank you. I just cried all over again. KORRASAMI 5EVER
Watching the Vice video with my guy, making cracks about Ice Giants. Where’s an Odin where you need one?
When I was a kid, we didn’t have no updog, we made do with dickfor and we liked it.
PS, why didn’t you allow my Tawana Brawley comment?
Perfect.
Naw. He's just become one with the Arizona Vortexes.
I will admit to bias because I loved the Korra finale, but I didn’t think it was subtle at all. I was shrieking in crazed glee as soon as they started walking towards the portal. When I dove into the internet on it later, someone pointed out that the scene mirrors the end scene between Katara and Aang in the old series, cutting out just before the kiss, and playing the same music. Someone on the Mary Sue pointed out the mountain backdrop was in the colors of the bisexual flag. I found it all pretty obvious.
Obviously I would have LOVED something more explicit, and I love that fans immediately made a version where they kiss. But I can also totally see Nick saying no to that. I guess the creators went to Nick, told them they wanted Korrasami, and Nick said okay, but vetoed a kiss. So it was all very intentional. It is only an inch forward, it’s true. But I don’t agree that it’s after-the-fact confirmation. They made it as obvious as they were allowed, and then followed it up with explicit words just to make sure bi leads were canon.
Also, I totally shipped Korrasami, and I was sooo afraid they’d do a Mako (ew) hook up, and I was prepared to be happy with Korra ending up alone and they she was with Asami and it so surpassed my expectations. So again, biased commentary.