Preach. Brykes view of their young female fans pisses me off. Dudes are very condescending and insult the variety and intelligence amongst ya'll by thinking, no by being CERTAIN that Mako is the dreamy loveboat all young girls want. They were HOPING you all would live vicariously through Korra, dislike Asami, and fall for Mako and his textbook shounen formula for being "attractive". They were certain ya'll would ignore his glaring flaws, and even scoff at the legit criticism that arise.
so i am cleaning out my asks (down to 293) and I found this AND IT IS STILL SO RELEVANT.
I really think the flanderization of Bolin must have happened mid show or something. When we first see him, he's pretty much all confidence. That might be a cover for some unresolved insecurities, but when you look at how clueless he is in the rest of the series, even as early as episode 5, they just made him "the guy who says funny things". Which sucks, cause I don't think Bryke's done a character with that balance of confidence and insecurity before (who could've bonded with Korra over that)
oops this is gonna be a long ass rant.
{{For those playing along at home, this ask is in reference to this post by Let’s-Roast-Mako.}}
UGH I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS but ultimately I became so underwhelmed by the entire LoK experience that those feelings condensed into a fine wine of disinterest sprinkled with occasional dislike.
Because I really dug the way Bolin was characterized as a ladies man/flirt without being a creepy pushy fuck. Characters like that are tragically not all that common when it comes to mainstream media, and so Bolin delighted me. Really.He was a cool ass dude.
Which is UGH because I really hate Mako.
LIKE OKAY I SAID.
I SAID IN THE VERY BEGINNING
WHEN THEY FIRST RELEASED THAT ONE SCENE OF MAKO COMING UP THE FUCKING STAIRS LIKE HE WAS THE GODDAMN PARAGON OF ALL-THAT-IS-ATTRACTIVE AND THE FUCKING CITYSCAPE WAS BEHINDS HIM AND THE LIGHTING WAS PERF AND HE HAD THIS LOOK OF “MEH”
that he was going to be fucking insufferable and eat up all the fucking screentime.
I felt that shit back at the episode three preview.
I started off lukewarm, and I had reservations, and I was amused but then got annoyed by how they always mentioned HOW ATTRACTIVE Mako was, but that preview was just too fucking much. I had conversations with friends who still had hope at this point, and it was like NO I AM TELLING YOU HE IS TOO BROODING IT IS TOO INTENTIONAL THIS IS BRYKE. Ask turd, man. Did not care for his blandflakes ass. :/
That just jumped out at me, because personally (though possibly as an fan/artist/media studies ologist/person with eyeballs) there is something so manufactured and intentional about his design and the way he was promoted (attractive brooding tall oh so hawt) that it was certainly deliberate a few shades from condescending pandering. He did not (and does not) feel like an organic character. He feels like an amalgamation of things meant to be “hot” and cater to fangirls— which Bryke already had a sketch impression of in the first place.
(And you have to understand, by this point we knew that Bryke was writing this solo, and you have to consider previous experience with the duo and their relationship writing and their treatment of fangirls and this really problematic view of them they have) And so they present us this WOOBIE BACKSTORY DARK AND BROODING TALL “ATTRACTIVE” GUY. And they called him attractive in literally every press release; they emphasized that so much.)
And then the PR team/advertisers/Nick/Korranation promoted Mako as the dude to be had. Here. And here. And fucking everywhere. EVERYTHING EVER became about Mako. Half Korra’s interactions can’t pass the Bechdel test and shit because we gotta talk about Mako. Even the unofficial art was pretty indicative.
Mako annoys the ever loving fuck out of me because he is designed to be this attractive-guy-every-girl-[in show and beyond the 4th wall]-is-drawn-to and he is written as such and treated by the narrative as such and the w h o l e show suffers for it.
This became a rant about Mako…JUST LIKE THE SHOW BECAME ABOUT HIM.
