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zuzuslastbraincell · 3 years

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IMO, if you’re going to criticise the way zukka’s booming popularity ties into the racialised fetishisation of mlm (great article on this as a phenomenon here), you should make that the core focus of your critique? I’ve seen some takes recently that try to critique it from additional angles but I feel these arguments are 1. borne out frustration 2. flawed 3. miss the point.

For example, I’ve seen some posts criticising zukka that are frustrated with people not for giving the canon wlw representation in the avatar universe the same kind of popularity and attention. I’m sympathetic to this frustration (I share it), but I think framing it in this way fails to recognise that neither of these ships are in ATLA itself. One is from a different show, that has far more inconsistent and arguably poorer writing, whose world-building has been critiqued from anti-imperialist perspectives and anti-capitalist perspectives multiple times, and critically, the canon wlw ship, while groundbreaking in children’s animation for its time, was poorly developed and foreshadowed. While you could attribute this to disputes with the executives at nicklelodeon, it doesn’t change the fact that as a viewer it’s not as compelling as it could have been. I personally love korrasami but I think there are good reasons to be disappointed or underwhelmed by its portrayal, there are good reasons why fans might not care much for Legend of Korra; indeed there are ATLA fans who haven’t even watched LoK. The other pairing is from a spin-off novel series about an important minor character, which hasn’t received anywhere near the publicity as ATLA or LoK. Again, I adore Rangi/Kyoshi, but we should be realistic about how much we expect casual viewers to read a spin-off novel series and how much attention it should garner without its own TV series. To some extent we need to be realistic – why should we expect people who are fans of ATLA, and only ATLA, to give as much attention to ships that are not part of ATLA?

I’ve also seen some posts that question why people don’t find the canonical m/f relationships appealing, and urge people to reconsider them, often stating gay =/= better, or more politically correct. While it’s true that liking ships absolutely should not be a measurement of how progressive you are, I find this perspective fails to recognise that there are actual genuine critiques that you could level at kataang, sukka, and maiko respectively? In each case you could make an argument for lack of development, that these relationships tend to centre the male character and their feelings? There are genuine reasons why viewers might be put off by these dynamics (in fact, there is no obligation for them to care, there never is), and I think we shouldn’t overcorrect and ignore the flaws in the dynamics’ canonical depiction that people might take issue with. I am also skeptical of the implication offered by this line of critique, where these canonical m/f relationships are all more politically correct – even if that’s true, I really don’t think that a lone is a good reason why people should be more invested in them (especially if the viewer finds their dynamic otherwise uncompelling flat etc.). We shouldn’t confuse shipping children’s TV characters with activism; taking an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and feminist approach to media is more to do with accountability than activism and about ensuring fandom cultures do not only only cater to white cishet men.

The last argument I’ve seen recently has been to do with the fact that mailee shouldn’t be compared too closely with zukka – agreed, in that they’re very different dynamics, and again, I can understand the frustration there. But mailee is not “more canonical” than zukka simply because the former were childhood friends. Firstly, neither of these relationships are canonical (may I remind you that Mai ends up with Zuko). Furthermore, there also no firm, rock solid, near indisputable evidence that Mai and Ty lee always cared for each other more deeply or fully than Azula; there is no firm, rock solid, near indisputable evidence that Mai and Ty lee always knew they were going to betray Azula and were leading her on the whole damn time. This is an interpretation of the text based on some circumstantial evidence and body language. It is a potentially an interesting, compelling interpretation of the text that has some limited evidence suggesting it could be true - but it ultimately relies on conjecture and extrapolation. It is not canon. There is also space for an interpretation of the text where Mai and Ty Lee never particularly liked each other or understood each other, and largely tried to get along for Azula’s sake. We should be careful to ensure that we don’t treat our headcanons as if they are ironclad canonical fact. There is space for a variety of interpretations of Mai and Ty Lee’s dynamic and to call it “more canonical” presents an interpretation of mailee as fact in a way I think not only is just kidding ourselves / exaggerating what we saw on screen, but also I think doesn’t allow for alternate interpretations that more broadly, impacts fandom negatively.

Like, ultimately I feel that all of these arguments are flawed, but also I think they miss the point! None of these things have much to do with zukka’s sudden popularity or why a lot of interpretations of zukka delve into racist fetishisation and mlm fetishisation. If you want to criticise zukka and its sudden rise in popularity, talk about the key factors at play. Talk about how migratory shippers latch on to new fandoms without much care for the context and detail of the source text, treating characters like blank slates they can attach tropes to without regard to their actual characterisation, either latching onto white characters no matter how minor their role is, or, as in the case of atla, either erasing & “whitening” the cultural background of the characters or just perpetuating racist perspectives.

We could also talk about how there is not much space or resources in fandom in general for wlw ships and discussions and spaces. We could talk about how women are more willing to work with and interpret male characters than vice versa, in part due to the lack of interiority and complexity often given to female characters in children’s animation historically but also due to misogyny and the male audience’s unwillingness to treat women like people even when presented with complex and layered female characters. We could also talk about the history of whiteness in fandom and how the source text was written by white american men and is a limited western interpretation of asian cultures and how that impacts the fandom and the reception and treatment of said cultures.

Like. I think there are more important factors at play and we shouldn’t make these flawed arguments simply out of frustration that what we care about and what we’re passionate about isn’t getting the reception we think it deserves. Because I get most of this, most of these arguments are borne out of frustration, but we shouldn’t exaggerate, mistate the case, or leave no room for critique.

#long post #i have no idea how to tag this #this is probably fandom wank ?#but i fucking hate that term it's so 00s livejournal #anyway i'm just frustrated by seeing these arguments

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