Interesting Links for 28-07-2020

[andrewducker]

How We'll Forget John Lennon (on the two stages by which society forgets cultural artefacts)

(tags:society art music history )

Lothian Bus driver shortages revealed as major contributor to Edinburgh's bus congestion hell last summer

(tags:buses transport edinburgh )

The Inescapable Whiteness of Avatar: The Legend Of Korra, and its Uncomfortable Implications

(tags:race avatar TV writing society )

How "Lord of the Rings" Chainmail Was Transformed Into an Innovative Architectural Mesh

(tags:architecture materials lotr )

Offshore wind in Europe won't need subsidies much longer

(tags:windpower GoodNews )

Not an Amazon Problem

(tags:Amazon capitalism )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

Re: Korra

I quote :
"But Korra isn’t a wholly new setting intentionally based on the intersections of between Asian and EuroAmerican culture, it is written to be a sequel to The Last Airbender and as such is building on the foundations of being without a EuroAmerica in its world."

I don't have a lot of patience with western-created stuff which plays with Asian-inspired worlds when and how it pleases them only to as the OP said "suggest that Americana is the inevitable future of all worlds. That is no other possibility for modernity and progress. That westernisation is inevitable even in fantasy worlds without a “West.”"

"That Americana is the inevitable future of all worlds" reminds me of the awfulness that was the new Battlestar Galactica (and countless other shows tbh).

[anna_wing]

By all means. All I'm saying is that I see no reason why anyone needs to get upset about how foreigners choose to entertain themselves.

I was a big fan of the first Battlestar Galactica in my distant youth, mainly because everyone was so pretty, but I don't think I got beyond the first episode of the remake.

[ninetydegrees]

So this has nothing to do with Korra or Asians in particular? You don't believe there's anything wrong with cultural appropriation or using another culture however you see fit? (Sincerely trying to understand your position, not put words in your mouth :)

[anna_wing]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "cultural appropriation", sorry. If a Japanese company wants to decorate its clothes with random roman alphabet text, or a French restaurant wants to use Chinoiserie in its decor, I see no reason to care either way.