Have you ever heard the discourse that's like,
"ehhhh Legend of Korra is too Western, that's why I don't
like it as much as Avatar"?
Well, is that a valid criticism?
Why would it be valid?
That's what I wanna talk about today.
To my long time viewers, this video is gonna be different
from how I usually do things.
I'm not gonna go through Korra scene by scene to point out
cultural references because
the Korra's...
I have no energy for that,
Korra's like four seasons.
So, this is going to be more of an opinion piece on this
specific common criticism.
Korra as a series is a lot more controversial than Avatar,
and while I LIKED Korra, I swear I did,
I'm definitely not going to pretend it's a perfect show, especially when
it comes to the political writing.
BUT, what I worry about with this "Korra is too Western" criticism
is that instead of coming from a place of informed concern,
it comes from a place of expecting something Asian-inspired to look a
certain way without really knowing or understanding what Asia was really
like in pre-modern time periods.
Because for me, when I first watched this show as it was airing,
it was pretty clear to me that the creators had simply moved their
aesthetic inspiration from like 1800s Asia to early 20th century Asia.
Early 20th century China, specifically, is what I saw,
because I'm Chinese and I have an existing impression of that.
I GOT what the creators were trying to do.
For example, let's talk Republic City.
While it's true that the creators took influence from
like Central Park in New York and the elevated railways in Chicago
and there's a bit of Vancouver there in the mountains in the back,
they've also said that they based it largely on 1920s
Shanghai and Hong Kong.
And that was recognizable to me.
To dismiss Republic City as "oh, this is just New York now," is
dismissing the fact that Asia did have so-called world-class
cities that were urbanized, industrialized, and culturally
diverse in the early 20th century.
Shanghai was considered the "Paris of the East."
It was one of the fashion and cultural capitals of the world, and
Korra did a decent job in capturing the atmosphere and the aesthetic.
It's true that Shanghai and Hong Kong developed with heavy influence from
Western colonizers, but just because the cultural exchange was forced
onto the local Asian population,
it doesn't mean they couldn't have made it their own,
or that it can't be considered "authentically Asian."
For example, consider this qipao I'm wearing.
It's a result of Western influence, when socialites in Shanghai modified
the traditional qipao to be more form-fitting and revealing as
a symbol of female liberation.
NOW, it's considered a form of traditional Chinese
dress, even though back then,
there were probably like tons of people who were like
Ugh, that qipao is so Western now, I don't like it anymore.
BUT, these qipao developed in the hands of Chinese women.
That makes it Chinese culture.
It would be way too simplistic to dismiss it as "not authentic,"
just like it would be way too simplistic to dismiss the aesthetic
of Korra as "too Western,"
when, if you look at the artist credits, plenty of designs
were done by Asians, and there was heavy collaboration with
Korean and Japanese studios.
Cultures evolve.
Culture exchanges happen.
Plenty of things are resisted against at first for being
"inauthentic" because they come from an outside influence,
but over time, it gets accepted.
Like, even the original traditional qipao would've been considered
inauthentic at one point,
because it came from the Manchu people at the frontier
of China, replacing the more
MORE traditional hanfu styles that the Han majority wore.
This is why China doesn't have a definitive national dress, by the way.
It's way too ethnically diverse.
You can't set any style of hanfu as the national dress because
that would require going back to at least the Ming dynasty style,
which has implications of Han supremacism because it's denying
that what Han people actually wore during the almost three
hundred years of the Qing dynasty were Manchu-influenced clothing,
which would stem from a fundamental unwillingness to
accept the Manchu as also Chinese and legitimate Chinese rulers.
Some parts of the hanfu revival movement has some really uncomfortable
Han supremacist overtones, actually so
that's why I don't associate with the community.
I just like my pretty clothes, thank you.
SO, those are the reasons I never found the LOOK of Korra
as a show to be too Western.
I actually love the world and artstyle of Korra a LOT more than Avatar,
because I'm so weak to that 1920s glamor.
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Anyway, I can only speak to how I interpreted Legend of
Korra as a Chinese person, but I thought it was obvious that
they were taking inspiration from the Republic of China era.
Republic of China, Republic City.
It's very on the nose, actually.
And in case you don't know what the Republic of China
era is, let me explain.
Yes, mainland China was, at one point, a republic.
We tried our hand at democracy.
Theoretically.
From 1912 to 1949, after the Qing dynasty was overthrown by
the Xinhai Revolution in 1911.
The Earth King from Avatar is based off the last emperor
of China, actually, if you didn't watch my Book 2 video.
And, disclaimer.
I'm about to skip a lot of details because this era was VERY COMPLICATED,
but basically, the Republic of China was founded by Sun Yat-sen, a
Western-educated scholar who pushed really hard for democracy in China.
I'm talking about SO MANY failed revolutions that he was actually
in exile in America when he was proclaimed president of the republic.
But he had to almost immediately pass the position to Yuan Shikai, the
general who commanded the actual army that made the revolution possible.
Then they tried to hold elections for the first time, but Yuan Shikai
had the top contender killed and took over Beijing himself and
declared himself the next emperor.
Which proved to be a big mistake, because at that point,
the anti-monarchy sentiment
was so strong that the move immediately made
him extremely unpopular.
The Chinese people made it very clear that whatever the next
model of government would be, they did not want another emperor.
But after Yuan Shikai died, no clear leader emerged, and so China
shattered into a bunch of regions controlled by local warlords.
Sun Yat-Sen then went to Southern China to establish a base for
the Chinese Nationalist Party,
or the Kuomingtang.
To get the Soviet Union's support, it allied with a little baby
political party that was the
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA.
But after Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925, his successor broke off the alliance
and started purging communists.
And so the Nationalists and the Communists went
to war with each other.
While they were already at war with the regional warlords.
It was just war nonstop war, everywhere until 1937...
when the Japanese officially invaded China.
The Nationalists and the Communists looked at each other like
"Truce?"
"Truce."
and put aside their differences, kind of, to deal with the much
more terrifying force that was the Japanese army slaughtering
their way through China.
This Second United Force broke down before they even kicked the Japanese
out, and after World War II ended,
the Nationalists and Communists were like WOW, that was MESSED UP…
Anyway, back to the Civil War.
Very long and detailed story short, the Communists eventually pushed the
Nationalists out of mainland China and into Taiwan three years later,
and that's where this whole "Two Chinas" thing that you
might've heard about comes from.
The Communist Party of China and the still existing Nationalist
Party of China both technically
lay claim to both mainland China AND Taiwan.
The CCP sees Taiwan as a rogue province, but honestly, Taiwan
is functionally independent, and Taiwanese people have developed
their own identity at this point.
So like, ugh.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that this era of Chinese
history was extremely turbulent and full of political intrigue.
"Old Shanghai" and "Republic of China" media, or Mingguo Ju,
are a very specific and very popular genre in Chinese media.
Great shows like Qianfu and Weizhuangzhe.
This genre is defined by a lot of action and spying and political
factions warring for dominance,
and that's clearly what Korra tries to replicate.
Which means Korra isn't too Western, right?
Well…
See, while the Old Shanghai look and the Republic of China
atmosphere is its own unique Chinese brand of storytelling devices,
you can't just airdrop it into the established Avatar world without
considering that they developed under the influence of European colonialism.
Consider the qipao again.
WHY is this considered a more "modernized" style?
Why is Western conflated with modern?
Although it was Chinese women who chose to make the change,
we can't ignore the role that Western colonial propaganda played
in influencing its creation.
Chinese people were never ashamed of their culture
before Europeans showed up.
They even had a superiority complex about it.
But then, through brutal military oppression, Europeans shamed Chinese
people into believing that their culture was backward and inferior
and that it was a good thing that white people were here to liberate
Chinese women with Western freedom.
But this assumes that in Western cultures, women are more free.
Which is not necessarily the case.
There's misogyny in Western cultures as well, just
manifested in different ways.
China had footbinding.
Europe had waistbinding.
While Europe was looking down on China for misogyny, it didn't allow
women to vote or own property, so…
Like, it's all very subjective.
So like, you can't take inspiration from 20th century Asian aesthetics
and history without unpacking how deeply rooted it is in colonialism.
In a world without a European cultural equivalent, where did these European
aesthetic influences come from?
It shouldn't be presented as an inevitability of social development.
Nations are not destined to develop European-looking cities
managed by democratic leadership.
Communities of people are not even destined to become "countries"
as we currently know them.
To stay respectful to the era it's taking inspiration from, what
Korra the show should've done was to focus more on the lingering
effects of the Hundred Year War,
with citizens of the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes struggling to reconcile
with how Fire Nation imperialism changed the world they knew.
Everyone in Korra acts like the war is ancient history or something,
like there are no lingering conflicts or attitudes toward Fire
Nation or Earth Kingdom people because of how the war went down.
And I don't find that to be very realistic.
The war was only 70 years ago.
World War II was 70-something years ago for us, and we still
constantly talk about it and live in a world order shaped by it.
Even if we were in 1920s China, the First Opium War happened about 80
YEARS before that, and China was definitely still feeling the effects.
Isn't it strange that the Fire Nation seems to have been absolved
of all responsibility for the war?
Like, did they make amends?
Did they have to pay reparations?
How did Fire Nation people feel about possible reparations terms?
Did they think it was fair?
Is there lingering nationalism?
Korra the show doesn't really get into this.
Republic City's own colonial history is only expanded upon in the Promise,
the comics trilogy written by Gene Luen Yang.
In it, he based Republic City on Qingdao, a former
German colony in China.
Republic City was originally Yu Dao, the oldest Fire Nation
colony in the Earth Kingdom.
It was a "poor backwater village" before being handed
over to the Fire Nation.
Then, because it became a hub of trade and cultural exchange,
it also became one of the richest cities in the world.
Fortunately, the comics still acknowledge that the Fire Nation
settlers have a much higher social status than the Earth
Kingdom natives, so it wasn't 100% glamorizing settler-colonialism.
And after the war ended, Zuko and Earth King Kuei
started something called the Harmony Restoration Movement
to give all the colonies back to the Earth Kingdom and kick all the
colonists back to the Fire Nation.
But Yu Dao didn't want to join back with the Earth Kingdom because it had
developed its own sense of identity,
and intercultural families had formed and lived there
for several generations now,
so they couldn't simply kick out all the colonists.
This ended up causing a huge clash between Zuko, Kuei, and the locals
before it was decided that Yu Dao should just become independent,
with elected representatives.
Now, this didn't happen in Qingdao.
This actually sounds closer to the situation in Hong Kong right now,
where it would rather be independent than part of Britain OR China,
but China wants to assimilate it again to rectify its
colonial era humiliation.
Yu Dao raises some very complex, compelling, and
relevant questions about how decolonization should be handled.
The problem is…
Korra the show doesn't really get into it besides Kuvira using it as a
motivation to attack Republic City.
I really feel like there should've been a way bigger
focus on Earth Kingdom people and how they processed losing
the war in the way that they did.
I mean, losing the Opium Wars sent China into a MASSIVE
cultural identity crisis.
In colonized countries, there's always this massive debate
between how hard they should hang onto their traditional culture
versus how much of foreign influence they should accept
to adapt to the changing world.
China had the Taiping Rebellion, started by a guy who had a few fever
dreams, read a pamphlet by a foreign Christian missionary, and got the idea
that he was Jesus' little brother.
20-30 million people ended up dying because of his Christian revolution.
But then China also had the Boxer Rebellion, started by
people who wanted to kick out all foreign influence.
So it's honestly weird to me that even though the Earth Kingdom lost the war,
the royal family managed to hang onto power until
Zaheer offed the Earth Queen.
Who's based off the Empress Dowager Cixi, by the way.
Cixi was the de facto ruler of China for basically the whole
2nd half of the 18th century
and she was famous for opposing "modernization" efforts
and spending lavishly while her people were suffering.
She's a fitting inspiration to take for a last Earth Queen, though.
AND it's weird that Mako and Bolin never had to deal with
any identity issues, being mixed heritage when visiting the Earth
Kingdom, when the world in Avatar was so culturally segregated.
It would've been really interesting to show a difference in how
they're treated, when Mako is more visibly Fire Nation while Bolin
is more visibly Earth Kingdom.
I know the producers probably didn't want to get into
potentially controversial identity politics territory,
but in the end, this makes it seem like there's missing
nuance to Korra's worldbuilding.
Why is the conflict in season 1 between benders
and nonbenders instead?
Like where did THAT come from?
Why doesn't it ever show up again?
The conflicts of seasons 2, 3, and 4 are at least more connected.
Korra opening the spirit portals at the end of 2 caused Zaheer
to break free in 3 and Zaheer killing the Earth Queen caused
Kuvira to rise to power in 4.
But my problem with Korra is that it has a very shallow understanding
of the political ideologies it tries to discourse about.
It kind of feels like at the start of every season, they
create the villain by going
"hey, let's make a Communist villain!"
or "hey, let's make an anarchist villain!"
instead of digging deep into the worldbuilding itself to muse about
the kind of anti-establishment sentiments that would arise under the
social pressures of the Korra world.
whIle considering the conflicts in the original Avatar.
Like, I know that a lot of this has to do with how uncertain
the Korra production was
but still, like, this is just my criticism.
For example, personally, I think the first season should've been about
how Republic City becomes flooded with Earth Kingdom refugees who are
swimming across the canal to escape the instability in the mainland.
And then there are a bunch of calls for the abolishment of
the Earth Kingdom monarchy.
So Zaheer could've been the first villain.
Then the season conflict could've been solved in a way that
involves considerable violence of benders against nonbenders,
and that's how anti-bending sentiments then rise up,
with Amon being the second villain, and so on.
Kay and Skittles has a great video series on how shallow Korra's
political understanding is, and how it's especially iffy because it makes
strawman arguments against all the political theories that challenge the
dominance of the Western capitalist status quo that we live under.
I highly recommend their videos, and I agree with their opinion
that the writers of Avatar may be good writers, but they wrote
themselves into a corner with Korra
because they couldn't imagine society evolving beyond the
industrialized, capitalist model that they grew up with in real life.
Western-style democracy is frequency presented in Korra as the end goal
that solves all problems, even though
it's shown that it doesn't.
But the show acts like there's literally nothing else we could
adopt that would be better than this system that's dominant in real life,
which is only dominant across the world because of colonialism.
So Korra DOES have a problem with being too Western,
but it's not because Republic City reminds you of New York.
It's too Western because its creators can't break free from presenting
the modern Western political and social model as the end goal,
and any challenges to it as too extreme or too naive.
Though, I also have to say that this isn't necessarily a valid
criticism when comparing Korra against Avatar the original series.
In spite of all the inspirations Avatar took from Asian cultures,
which I speculate about in detail in my Avatar videos,
Avatar was also a Western-made show, and even when I was a
little kid, I could feel it.
I never came to Avatar looking for a non-Western perspective!
I looked to actual non-Western productions for that.
So I don't think Korra necessarily deserves to be criticized more than
Avatar for being "too Western."
Like, why are you looking to a Western production for a
non-Western story to begin with?
You should be checking out stuff like Farewell My Concubine, a
movie that captures the sheer turmoil that Chinese society was
going through in the 20th century.
Or Kung Fu Hustle, a hilarious movie you HAVE TO WATCH that features
some of that Old Shanghai aesthetic.
And there's also the whole genre of Republic of China
dramas I mentioned like
潜伏，伪装者,
and 金粉世家 is good too
but I'm not sure if these have subtitles so
if any of you have your own recommendations, please
leave them in the comments!
You can read books too!
Like "These Violent Delights" by my friend Chloe Gong.
This is a New York Times Best-Seller and it's a retelling of Romeo and
Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai and it really goes deep into that era.
So if you like the aesthetic of Korra, buy this book.
By my friend, Chloe.
Anyway, that was my opinion piece. Thank you for watching
and I hope you learned something new.
If you want to see more video essays from me, please consider supporting
me on Patreon or tipping me on Ko-Fi.
Shout outs to my Patreon GUARDIAN LIONS.
Benji Sudolcan, do-it-out-of-spite, Felix Chaplin, Molly McAllister,
Nikolas Coates, and Skye Doto.
Finally, again, this video was sponsored by the glamorous
1920s game, June's Journey
which you can download for free with the link in the description!
Sponsorships help creators keep making content.
Therefore, see you next time!