Fascinating topic and discussions! Speaking of gender roles and villains, am I the only one who thinks Azula purposefully dresses as a boy throughout the series, with the sole exception of "The Beach?" Her clothes and hair are alike in style to the clothes boys and men wear, with the full topknot, pantaloon-like pants and the armor, and I don't see other girls and women, except women in uniform, dress like her.
To be sure Azula's not hiding her gender at all; she's liberal with the makeup, for one thing. Still, I got the strong impression that she knew she would be taken more seriously if she dressed in a masculine way. I've seen it in real life, too: the first female presidential candidate in Korea that I know of (back in the 90s) dressed in a suit and had short hair, and I heard she did the same throughout her political career to be taken seriously. I don't entirely rule out gender identity or just plain taste for her or Azula, but it seemed to me Azula's outfit demonstrated that sexism was a real force even in the Fire Nation.
Azula's is such an interesting case in female villainy and sexism. The canon I thought made her extremely interesting, but the ways fandom treated her showed a lot of the pitfalls you mentioned. It's like some fans really like her but can't live with her as she is, and so they distort her image. The ones I find prevalent and problematic:
1. It's all Ozai's fault - A favorite interpretation among Azula's fans seems to be that Ozai turned her evil when she was young, usually during a short period of time (in a version of events I call Evil Summer Camp) before the "Zuko Alone" flashback. These fans seem to want to excuse or externalize Azula's evil so their favored character won't be, you know, evil. To be sure it's not just female villains who get this treatment since you see Zuko in Leather Pants all the time.
2. She's harmless - Some fans also minimize the impact of her actions since most of her worst acts of villainy failed or were reversed (edit: reversed, not revered), i.e. Aang's death, the conquest of Ba Sing Se etc. Uhh, no? SHE ALMOST ENDED THE AVATAR CYCLE. It was only by luck, foresight, and Katara's skills that the world still has an Avatar. Azula also subjected Ba Sing Se to brutal foreign occupation in addition to the oppression they were already living under. I find the idea that she did no harm as problematic as the idea that she can't be evil on her own.
3. Azula as femme fatale - I was once complimented for portraying Zhao as Azula's ally without writing creepy sexual subtext between the two. My reaction: "Huh?" She was eleven at the point I was writing her, even less interested in sex than she would be at fourteen, how could there be subtext with Zhao?
And then I learned Azula/Zhao subtext was nothing new in fandom. Which is like Bizarro World, because if there's one thing we know about Azula it's that she's horribly inept at flirting, much less seduction. Where did Azula as sexy-Lolita come from? (Let's not even get into the Misaimed Fandom of Lolita.) It's like fans don't know what to do with Azula and have to pigeonhole her into familiar categories, no matter how gross and ill-fitting.
Pictured in the icon: Complex female character done right in the form of Artesia by Mark Smylie. Worker of dark sorceries, priestess, kingslayer, beloved queen, war criminal, brave captain. She also has sex with lots of different partners for the sheer pleasure of it, and never has any underlying agenda.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-09-04 12:19 am (UTC)To be sure Azula's not hiding her gender at all; she's liberal with the makeup, for one thing. Still, I got the strong impression that she knew she would be taken more seriously if she dressed in a masculine way. I've seen it in real life, too: the first female presidential candidate in Korea that I know of (back in the 90s) dressed in a suit and had short hair, and I heard she did the same throughout her political career to be taken seriously. I don't entirely rule out gender identity or just plain taste for her or Azula, but it seemed to me Azula's outfit demonstrated that sexism was a real force even in the Fire Nation.
Azula's is such an interesting case in female villainy and sexism. The canon I thought made her extremely interesting, but the ways fandom treated her showed a lot of the pitfalls you mentioned. It's like some fans really like her but can't live with her as she is, and so they distort her image. The ones I find prevalent and problematic:
1. It's all Ozai's fault - A favorite interpretation among Azula's fans seems to be that Ozai turned her evil when she was young, usually during a short period of time (in a version of events I call Evil Summer Camp) before the "Zuko Alone" flashback. These fans seem to want to excuse or externalize Azula's evil so their favored character won't be, you know, evil. To be sure it's not just female villains who get this treatment since you see Zuko in Leather Pants all the time.
2. She's harmless - Some fans also minimize the impact of her actions since most of her worst acts of villainy failed or were reversed (edit: reversed, not revered), i.e. Aang's death, the conquest of Ba Sing Se etc. Uhh, no? SHE ALMOST ENDED THE AVATAR CYCLE. It was only by luck, foresight, and Katara's skills that the world still has an Avatar. Azula also subjected Ba Sing Se to brutal foreign occupation in addition to the oppression they were already living under. I find the idea that she did no harm as problematic as the idea that she can't be evil on her own.
3. Azula as femme fatale - I was once complimented for portraying Zhao as Azula's ally without writing creepy sexual subtext between the two. My reaction: "Huh?" She was eleven at the point I was writing her, even less interested in sex than she would be at fourteen, how could there be subtext with Zhao?
And then I learned Azula/Zhao subtext was nothing new in fandom. Which is like Bizarro World, because if there's one thing we know about Azula it's that she's horribly inept at flirting, much less seduction. Where did Azula as sexy-Lolita come from? (Let's not even get into the Misaimed Fandom of Lolita.) It's like fans don't know what to do with Azula and have to pigeonhole her into familiar categories, no matter how gross and ill-fitting.
Pictured in the icon: Complex female character done right in the form of Artesia by Mark Smylie. Worker of dark sorceries, priestess, kingslayer, beloved queen, war criminal, brave captain. She also has sex with lots of different partners for the sheer pleasure of it, and never has any underlying agenda.