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I haven't seen the video, but what I remember from the episode is that Jet seemed more like an adventurist/wrecker than a committed revolutionary, who wanted to satisfy his bloodlust while trying to appear as one of the "good guys."
The neoliberalism notwithstanding.
Basically yeah. It's about showing that he just wants revenge and is willing to kill people just to satisfy that. I mean, the whole show is neoliberal "don't kill the bad guy" pacifist shit where Aang won't even kill magic fire Hitler out of principle.... but like also.. it's a fucking kids show? Are we really going to Marxist critique a damn kids show for not killing the bad guy?
tbf marxist critique on kids shows is really common. breadtube for all of its revolutionary might loved talking about kids shows so much that it's pretty much all it ended up doing.
i kinda get it. i mean kids programming is going to hand deliver whatever the dominant ideology is straight to the minds of impressionable kids. there's something to analyze there. don't know how productive it is but it's fun, at least.
I get what you're saying and while Aang wouldn't kill Ozai out of principle, which does make a little bit of sense since he is the literal last of the Air nomads and want to continue to live in their way, the show made it pretty clear that killing Ozai was the absolute right thing to do. Every single other Avatar Aang talked to literally said to him that he should kill Ozai, even the other Air nomad Avatar that came before him said that. And while Aang didn't do it, the option of killing was never showed as wrong in this particular case.
It's a show produced in the imperial core, and the liberalism comes with the package, but I do believe there's a lot of good stuff in there too.
Oh, absolutely you are right 100%. I love the show despite the gripes. But it is also just a show. I watch it for entertainment. It has a good story and good jokes. The fact it's being so heavily critiqued is just... Idk. Weird? Of all the horrible shows and animes out there, some that literally support actual fascism... To go after little ol Avatar seems really silly to me.
I love the show despite the gripes. But it is also just a show.
Yeah that's completely fine, but what people consume, specially pop culture since it is so popular and specially as a kid, help mold what they think. You're not wrong that it is just a kid's show, but I think it's great to have people do marxist analysis of this type of stuff, we need to dispute these spaces that are already occupied by neolibs and fascists, who critiques shows all the time already. But you're right, there should be more effort into critiquing from our side on shit that is much more problematic and actually fascistic.
Agreed.
wants revenge and is willing to kill people just to satisfy that
Revenge is good and it is the right of colonized peoples to seek revenge for the atrocities the colonizers inflicted upon them.
Are we really going to Marxist critique a damn kids show for not killing the bad guy?
Sure, because we can have better stories. Iron Widow is a Young Adult novel that's about fighting systemic oppression by brutally killing the bad guys.
Disclaimer I did enjoy Avatar quite a bit and that's why the flaws rankle me so much. There's a lot about it that's good. I just wish it had committed harder to supporting revolutionary liberation then undermining its own framing by libbing it up.
Also, it's not like they're ousting fire nation settlers with their civilian killing terrorist tactics. Then you could at least approach the issue with some kind of Fanon-esque view on the violence of the colonized, but that's not what's happening.
They're wiping out an entire earth kingdom village, simply because they think it will take out a small handful of fire nation soldiers in the process.
Jet is definitely an adventurist/wrecker, in the logic of the narrative.
Its the "Oh, there's Hamas under that town. Everybody there is a valid target" mindset.