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Something I've always found rather strange about ATLA is how it's super Asian but was made by a pair of white guys. (1/_)
That's not to say that it's poor representation; especially in the time it was made, when representation was barely a dot on the horizon. But compared to modern stuff, a group of Asian kids voiced by white VAs seems odd.
This is something that has been on my mind since we started work on The Perfect Stone, which we've been trying to think of as "Asian fantasy done by Asians."
We've spent a lot of time being as careful as possible about things like real-life analogues and names, and trying not to overgeneralize or depict anything from other Asian cultures that we don't know that much about (namely Tibetan).
DiMartino and Konietzko did mad research but there's still some stuff that sticks out. I spend a lot of time thinking about how the M. Night Shyamalan movie pronounces Aang wrong, for the show, but not according to Asian phonetics.
Technically, they got it wrong from the source material, but the source material didn't really have it right either.
Ultimately, I can't help but feel like there's a lingering feeling of cultural yellow fever pervading this show. It's a really really sincere yellow fever, with a lot of genuine love, but it's impossible for me to not call it fetishization to some degree.
My brain contrasts with Jackie Chan Adventures automatically, because there's a really similar style, but JCA taps into some very inherently Asian/Asian-American ideas that feel genuine, on the level of non-fantasy stuff like Kim's Convenience.
Let's contrast Uncle with Uncle Iroh. Uncle Iroh is great but he's a walking "wise old sage" stereotype. Uncle is more of a classical "Asian uncle," also a stereotype but one that has a bit more actually Asian character.
Uncle Iroh feels like he's written by white people while Uncle feels like an actual immigrant, written by someone who knew someone who was Uncle irl. Uncle Iroh is more like a martial arts movie archetype, as seen by fans.
Anyway, I think ATLA does a lot of great stuff on its own terms and it's still really good, it's just a strange thing to be watching in today's media culture, what with the @SimuLiu and the @aliwong and whatnot.
I recognize its brilliance especially in its time but I do think there's a large element of nostalgia at play that needs to be recognized. I do think it's overrated, but that's because people hype it up so much. The over is not much more than the actual quality.
Also using this thread to plug The Perfect Stone again I guess https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-perfect-stone/act-2/viewer?title_no=434711&episode_no=2
