Netflix’s upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action adaptation may visually look a lot like the cartoon, but the creative team has made a big change to the character of Sokka, toning down his casual sexism for the new series.
Speaking with EW (via Variety), the cast of the series began discussing changes, leading Kiawentiio (Katara) and Ian Ousley (Sokka) to call out Sokka’s sexism in the first season of the original show and mention that it wouldn’t play well in live-action where things feel a bit more real.
“I feel like we also took out the element of how sexist [Sokka] was,” Kiawentiio explained after Ousley mentioned that everything had more weight to it thanks to the live-action. “I feel like there were a lot of moments in the original show that were iffy.”
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“Yeah, totally,” Ousley responded. “There are things that were redirected just because it might play a little differently [in live action].”
That may seem like a pretty smart change, given the series premiered in 2005 and society has come a long way since then, but Sokka’s sexism wasn’t used in Avatar: The Last Airbender for laughs or to put women down – it was a character flaw that was addressed. Removing it is an interesting move that could shift the character in a major way, though he had plenty of other areas for growth when the series started. He was indeed woefully sexist with a litany of comments and lines that, maybe even as a flawed character, crossed the line, so hopefully, the showrunners have found a different way to grow the character.
They may, in fact, have found a lot of different ways to grow the show. The series is said to unravel plotlines differently and take a harder look at the genocide committed by the Fire Nation, so buckle up for a bumpy ride if you were tuning in just to see Aang do the same stuff all over again.
