AtLA: an episode by episode anaylsis
Jul. 21st, 2013 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
januarFor the last couple of months, my brother and I have been going and seeing the first showing of a movie each Sunday. Today was the same, but different. Instead of going into the same theater, we went into different ones: he watched "Pacific Rim" and I watched "The Heat".
As we were going into the theater, I said something about how I was quite sure my movie was going to pass all parts of the Bechdel test. My brother, who had never heard of it, became intrigued, and after the movies, looked up info about it. That led to a conversation about different tv shows and anime and whether they passed the test.
All this made me decide to put my newly acquired Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra dvds to good use. Besides rewatching all the episodes, I'm going to see if each episode passes all to none of the parts of the test.
The qualifications to pass the test completely are:
1) There are two female characters [I like the variance that says they must be named famales, so I'm going to use that version].
2) They have at least one conversation [To me, a conversation has to have back and forth, like gal 1 talks, then gal 2 talks, then gal 1 talks again].
3) The conversation is not about men [This one has always confused me. If they have multiple conversations, does every one of them have to not be about men? Or does just one of them have to be about something other than men? For this I'm going with the second case].
Enought yakking from me. Let's get this show on the road.
Episode 1: The Boy in the Iceberg
In the first episode of AtLA, there are two named females, Katara and GranGran. When Katara and Sokka bring Aang to the village, GranGran tells Katara to come along and they have a conversation. Unfortunately, this conversation is completely about Aang, a male character. Therefore, 1-1 does not completely pass, only getting a 2 out of 3.
Episode 2: The Avatar Returns
The two named females remain the same as the previous episode, Katara and GranGran. They actually have three different conversations. However, once again, each of these conversations is about a male character. This episode receives a 2 out of 3.
Episode 3: The Southern Air Temple
There is only one named female in this episode. Actually, there is only one female, period. That leaves this episode with resounding 0 out of 3.
Episode 4: The Warriors of Kyoshi
As I started this episode, I thought 'finally! an episode that will completely pass!' With an episode with a bunch of warrior women, I didn't realize I'd be so wrong. There are there named females in this episode, Katara, Suki, and Koko. However, none of them have a conversation with each other. Katara does say one line to Suki, when they're tied up, but Suki's next remark goes to Sokka, not Katara. Plus, the remark Katara says to Suki is about Sokka. There is a brief conversation between Suki and the (unnamed) Kyoshi Warriors, and again, this conversation is about Sokka.
I want to talk about this episode a little bit more in regards to the two groups of women who are represented in this episode. The first group is Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors, female fighters who kick butt. I'm sure if one than one of them had a name other than Suki, and we got a scene with them in the practice hall talking, the episode would have passed all three parts with flying colors. Then there's the second group, Koko and the Aang fan club. This group is what causes many other media items to fail: all they care about is boys, or in this case, one particular boy. It's kinda interesting how the two groups contrast each other.
But at the end, the episode still only got 1 out of 3.
Episodes 5-8 (and maybe 9-12) tomorrow!
As we were going into the theater, I said something about how I was quite sure my movie was going to pass all parts of the Bechdel test. My brother, who had never heard of it, became intrigued, and after the movies, looked up info about it. That led to a conversation about different tv shows and anime and whether they passed the test.
All this made me decide to put my newly acquired Avatar the Last Airbender and Legend of Korra dvds to good use. Besides rewatching all the episodes, I'm going to see if each episode passes all to none of the parts of the test.
The qualifications to pass the test completely are:
1) There are two female characters [I like the variance that says they must be named famales, so I'm going to use that version].
2) They have at least one conversation [To me, a conversation has to have back and forth, like gal 1 talks, then gal 2 talks, then gal 1 talks again].
3) The conversation is not about men [This one has always confused me. If they have multiple conversations, does every one of them have to not be about men? Or does just one of them have to be about something other than men? For this I'm going with the second case].
Enought yakking from me. Let's get this show on the road.
Episode 1: The Boy in the Iceberg
In the first episode of AtLA, there are two named females, Katara and GranGran. When Katara and Sokka bring Aang to the village, GranGran tells Katara to come along and they have a conversation. Unfortunately, this conversation is completely about Aang, a male character. Therefore, 1-1 does not completely pass, only getting a 2 out of 3.
Episode 2: The Avatar Returns
The two named females remain the same as the previous episode, Katara and GranGran. They actually have three different conversations. However, once again, each of these conversations is about a male character. This episode receives a 2 out of 3.
Episode 3: The Southern Air Temple
There is only one named female in this episode. Actually, there is only one female, period. That leaves this episode with resounding 0 out of 3.
Episode 4: The Warriors of Kyoshi
As I started this episode, I thought 'finally! an episode that will completely pass!' With an episode with a bunch of warrior women, I didn't realize I'd be so wrong. There are there named females in this episode, Katara, Suki, and Koko. However, none of them have a conversation with each other. Katara does say one line to Suki, when they're tied up, but Suki's next remark goes to Sokka, not Katara. Plus, the remark Katara says to Suki is about Sokka. There is a brief conversation between Suki and the (unnamed) Kyoshi Warriors, and again, this conversation is about Sokka.
I want to talk about this episode a little bit more in regards to the two groups of women who are represented in this episode. The first group is Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors, female fighters who kick butt. I'm sure if one than one of them had a name other than Suki, and we got a scene with them in the practice hall talking, the episode would have passed all three parts with flying colors. Then there's the second group, Koko and the Aang fan club. This group is what causes many other media items to fail: all they care about is boys, or in this case, one particular boy. It's kinda interesting how the two groups contrast each other.
But at the end, the episode still only got 1 out of 3.
Episodes 5-8 (and maybe 9-12) tomorrow!
