Quoted By:
At the end of the day this drama seems to boil down to Asian-Americans not liking the idea that the show that (so to speak) opened the floodgates on more western companies exploring "epic"-styled stories set in non-European inspired settings was helmed by two white guys. It's just kind of a bitter reminder that white people see more success in western industries (see, Book of Life vs Coco). I don't understand why they're going so hard for a Disney movie, though- Raya really wasn't anything special. I liked it, but Disney is still clearly struggling when creating stories like this one, and it still suffers from their method of "let's blend it all together, Americans won't be able to tell the difference so it's no big deal". And honestly? I think ATLA DID impact Disney. Just look at the evolution of the "Disney Princess" over the last decade.
>Tiana (last traditional Disney Princess)
>Rapunzel (still pretty standard Disney Princess but she has unique abilities and at the time was the most proactive Princess after Mulan)
>Merida (first Disney Princess to not have a love interest, is similar to Rapunzel and Mulan in how action-oriented she is)
>Elsa (is just straight up a super-hero, has no love interest, Frozen 2 went the more epic adventure route compared to Frozen)
>Moana (buff, brown, no love interest)
>Raya (buff, brown, no love interest, carries some really bad trauma and is probably on-par with Mulan in terms of physical fighting skills and strength)
I'm not saying ATLA invented its tropes, but I honestly don't think we would've gotten Avatar Elsa or Sisu the Last Water Dragon if it never existed.
