So um. I genuinely don't have many thoughts on the live action atla. It looks fine.. i guess
Except. Zuko's scar.
It's so... underwhelming. Like yeah it's there. It's red and it has a little bit of texture. But I guess i was hoping the live action would make it a little more prominent.
Like I'm a burn victim myself, who very much went through a similar struggle Zuko did. Where i felt like my scars define me. This. This feels not like what i hoped for. They even let him keep his eyebrow 😤
And I'm hoping that it's just because it wasn't practical to go all out with it. Like it was too expensive to put full prosthetics and special effects on such a young actor for every shoot.
But i have this sinking feeling in my gut that its because he's 'meant to be attractive'. Or even more heartbreakingly, that making it bigger would be considered too 'gory' or 'body horror'.
And im just tired of seeing scars and other 'deformities' as being seen as something to only be shown in full capacity in horror movies. That it would be too visceral or too 'gross' to fully show. It reinforces the idea that people like Zuko, people like me have something inherently disgusting and ugly about us. That our features have to be toned down in order to be palatable to a wider audience.
I remember seeing Zuko for the first time as a kid and seeing a part of myself that was rarely represented. I was bullied for my skin grafts as a child. Of course i was, kids are cruel. But seeing Zuko go through the struggles i went through and to have him find people who didn't treat him differently was so important to me. Like to me, that part of his story was arguably more important than his redemption arc.
And seeing Zuko seen as attractive by people in the fandom was also a profound experience. Because it felt like i could too exist in my full burnt chicken nugget glory and still be treated as a full person. Not looked at with pity or disgust.
So that's why live action Zuko's scar is such a disappointment to me.
I have other thoughts on the atla remake but really, they don't matter that much, since i don't think ill be watching it
