Robots, Magical girls, Benders, College, Postmodernism and Deconstruction

The following article is a bunch of nonsense inspired by me watching too much of PBS idea channel, and in particular the Community episode that remains one of my favorites:

This episode brilliantly highlights how Community is a postmodern deconstruction of the sitcom genre. I’m not one to restate what’s already been discussed at length so I won’t. I’d like to instead expand on that idea by drawing unusual parallels and giving you new angles of reflection based on contemporary art, and in particular how Evangelion (expanding our previous article), Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the Legend of Korra all circle around postmodernist deconstruction. (so yeah spoilers about these ahead)

Many amazing essays have been written about how Evangelion is a brilliant postmodern deconstruction of the mecha genre and the otaku culture [1, 2], or how Madoka deconstructs the magical girl genre [1] into a metalepsic existential reflexion [2]. The parallel between the two series can be pushed even further.

But what I find even more interesting is how both of the series have an ad-hoc movie addition. Evangelion has Rebuild, and Madoka has Rebellion. Interestingly enough, those works seem to add a layer of meta and deconstruction which won’t fail to make you ask “what the fuck am I watching ?“. Rebuild (so far ^^) feels like a parody, introducing ludicrous time skips, and withdrawing from the storyline most of its intellectual interest to leave us with a run-of-the-mill empty narrative. Rebellion feels like a big fuck you, undoing everything that happened before to end up in a situation negating the very purpose of the original series.

In a sense, the two saga contain their own deconstruction within them, which adds up an extra layer of meta, reflection and analysis (post-postmodern ?). They deconstruct themselves by the very means with which they deconstructed their genre (for god’s sakes there’s a whole kawoshin romcom movie that ends with a bang…), in a very elegant self-containing self-negation which can’t help but recall the transcendence of the included middle.

Which throws us back to Community. With a very controversial 4th season without its genius creator Dan Harmon, it’s like the work took an identity of its own and rebelled against its creator to assert its own independence (not entirely unlike the development process of the original series of Evangelion). That raises a ton of interesting questions which we may follow up on later on, but it also makes a very real case for the inclusion of its self-deconstruction within the show. But worthy of its reputation, the show offers us even more food for thoughts: not only does it surpass this deconstruction with a 5th season as brilliant as if nothing happened (deconstructing deconstruction?), but it provides us with a 6th season produced independently on Yahoo!, often described as “a shadow of what the series once was” with a lot of the cast gone and an after taste of… weird. Thus, it adds up a second deconstruction layer on top of the postmodern cake and leveraging this change of medium to show the world the beauty and richness that deconstruction can offer, especially when self-aware. (deconstructing deconstructed deconstruction?)

Which brings us to Nickelodeon fan-acclaimed Legend of Korra, and the most controversial part of this essay (feel free to stop reading if you think Korra is even remotely a good idea. Is anyone even reading ^^). At first, I did not enjoy the legend of Korra at all. Korra was arrogant, stupid and stubborn and I just wanted to smash her head against a wall. But then postmodernism came along and showed me the way. Cause you know who else is famous for provoking this kind of reaction among viewers? Yep, Shinji Ikari (for the record I love Shinji). And it’s true, both characters are kind of insufferable. One may say they’re too human. Korra and her overconfidence mirrors Shinji’s low self esteem. You’d be mad to chose them for heroes, right? #postmodern

And when you think about it, it all falls into place. What kind of hero spends one season fighting people who demand the abolition of privilege (they’re LITTERALY called equalists), fight the people who want to reunite spirit and humans before deciding that hey that may not be such a bad idea after all, then fights a group of people wanting to overthrow despots to install democracy… The show makes a total mockery of the world painstakingly built inside Avatar: the last airbender. Forget the balance of nations and elements, the repeating circle of equilibrium. Instead of an epic quest of self-discovery, you get an insane amount of ridiculous sports, a flipping movie industry, people hooking up here and there, more and more ridiculous variations of bending, a genesis tale directly contradictory to everything narrated in Avatar… For god’s sakes it even ends with a fucking mecha! How could anyone take it seriously? And to finish the parallel, the genius behind Avatar, head writer Aaron Ehasz, is as absent as Dan Harmon from Community season 4. Korra even had to change medium too.

That being said, you may reply that it’s a little easy to justify something being bad with the flag “postmodern deconstruction” and maybe Korra is just that bad, to which I’d answer that a failure of this magnitude and so total is truly something to behold. But admittedly it is an easy life hack, which then begs a follow-up reflection I promised earlier (woow continuity yay) about art and the intent of the creator. Watch out for the next article /o/

PS: quick playlist to scratch the surface of all thats wrong with Korra for the people who need it