THE IMPORTANCE OF KORRASAMI IN CHILDREN’S MEDIA
With the finale of The Legend of Korra having officially aired, we can now see the ripples its aftermath has created throughout the media. When protagonist Korra and her close female friend Asami Sato ended the show by walking into the literal spiritual sunset together, the implications of romance were hard to deny, so much so they’ve been discussed, dissected, praised, and critiqued by media and fans alike.
The show has had a rough time being handled by the stumbling hands of Nickelodeon. Due to the immense popularity of its predecessor Avatar: The Last Airbender, Nickelodeon greenlighted the show. This was in spite of some reservations that Bryan Konietzko revealed to NPR the network had in backing a show with a female lead. However, since it’s inception The Legend of Korra has faced many troubles, including clumsy Twitter handling—in a humorously embarrassing moment, the official Nick Twitter retweeted a fan made edit promoting it as an in show piece—to the network pulling it from TV all together.
The reason why the show was pulled? Content. Executives felt that the show—after the first season’s finale included two characters dying on screen—was too dark for its Saturday morning timeslot. So they pulled The Legend of Korra from it’s original Saturday morning TV timeslot and moved the show to Friday nights. Unfortunately, the time switch didn’t hold much effect and the network pulled the show completely off television, only to show the final two seasons online instead, which, coincidentally or not, only gave the creators affectionately called “Bryke”—a name coined by the fandom and derived from combining Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino’s names—and their team more free reign.
It’s been argued by some fans that the third and fourth seasons of Korra are the best of the show’s run. With many feeling frustrated by the pacing and lack of character development in the first two seasons—not to mention the forced and at times jarring love triangle that was between Korra, Mako, and Asami—the third season focused instead on plot, characters, and began the foundation for Korra and Asami’s growing friendship. The show also closed the romantic subplots both women had with Mako after season two.
This foundation grew a prominent fanbase that garnered the attention of both the creators and Korra’s voice actor Janet Varney. However, fans were very reluctant to hold much hope that the two could actually become “canon” within the context of the show. Given that American television still struggles with the inclusion of queer sexualities in adult content, including diversity in children or family based content is even more of a pipe dream.
Yet, that’s exactly what happened. The finale aired with such strong implications that Korra and Asami’s friendship had finally grown into more, treading into romantic waters, that high profile sites such as Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, A. V. Club, and Forbes have all commented and supported the romantic relationship between the two women. Furthermore, both creators haveofficially confirmed “Korrasami’s” legitimacy on their personal Tumblrs.
With the in-show evidence, along with the confirmation from the creators, a greater discussion is brewing about queer characters within the medium of children based cartoons. I was lucky enough to be given the chance to further discuss not only the romantic relationship between Korra and Asami, but also the inclusion of queer characters and diverse sexualities in children’s media with some fantastic fellow writers here at Woman Write About Comics.
There aren’t a lot of bisexual characters in our media, but at Woman Write About Comics we wanted to highlight some of our favorite bisexual comic book characters.
The character I decided to talk about was David Alleyne best known for New Mutants and Young Avengers. I just adore David so much and he got such a bad wrap during the Young Avengers run. Even so I wanted to talk about how important David is as one of the few characters in any fictional medium that actually stated he was bi and was a person of color.
So fandom may not have loved David but I did and I was really happy to have gotten the chance to highlight his importance in this piece.
Excerpt:
So a lot of people might not know much about David Alleyne, he played a moderately important part in various X-men storylines, specifically as a member of the New Mutants and the New X-men. David’s mutant powers consisted of the ability to telepathically absorb the knowledge and skills of those around him. However, David lost his powers after M-Day. Instead of leaving the X-Men, David continued to work with them until he was recruited by Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) to lead the young new X-men on the island of Utopia. After Cyclops and Wolverine parted ways, David stayed on Utopia and led the team until it’s destruction.
I’ve struggled with body issues since middle school. There, I said it. I was a chubby, short, frizzy-haired teenager who couldn’t stand to look in the mirror for more than a few seconds. Working out didn’t fix that; I fixed that. And when I did, working out became something I enjoyed, instead of something I felt obligated to do because of personal insecurities.
The internet, however, isn’t truly conducive to aiding me in my quest.
I searched, I scoured, but in the end even Pinterest wasn’t really beneficial in the long-run. I’m simply not the type of person who learns that way. I was also completely unready to truly devote myself to it. With such a shaky plan, any motivation I found would be quickly washed away when life got in the way.
Which is the first thing I learned when I decided to sit down, and really dedicate myself to this.
Make a plan.
Get fancy and put up a whiteboard chart outlining your routine. Go simple and use a notepad. Whatever works –just make a plan.