Netflix's live-action 'Last Airbender' showrunner explains rewriting character to be less 'sexist'

Netflix’s live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" showrunner discussed rewriting one of its characters to be less "sexist" than the character’s portrayal in the source material.

"Avatar: The Last Airbender" originally aired as an animated series on Nickelodeon in the early 2000s. Now that the show is being rebooted as a live-action series on Netflix, the showrunner discussed tweaking one of the character’s attitudes towards women.

Albert Kim told IGN that the character "Sokka" did not "translate" to the live-action adaption. "Sokka" was mostly used for comedic relief in the show. The character frequently made comments on gender roles, especially about his sister Kitara in the story, as she was expected to conform to certain customs of their community, like doing domestic chores.

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"There are certain roles I think that Katara did in the cartoon that we didn't necessarily also do here," Kim said. "I mean, I don't want to really get into a lot of that, but some gender issues that didn't quite translate from the cartoon."

"Netflix wanted to guard against him being perceived as outright unlikable," he added. "Yeah. So we had to guard against that kind of stuff." 

He continued, "And so, those are things that aren't really changing a character as so much as updating them a little bit. And in terms of plot points, yeah, there was a lot of things that we, in the writer's room, we put down, 'These are the mileposts that we're going to hit'...We knew where the big story would begin and end."

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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, actor Ian Ousley, who plays Sokka, and actress Kiawentiio Tarbell, who plays Katara, discussed how the characters’ expectations of gender roles were changed.

"I feel like we also took out the element of how sexist [Sokka] was. I feel like there were a lot of moments in the original show that were iffy," Kiawentiio said.

"Yeah, totally," Ousley added. "There are things that were redirected just because it might play a little differently [in live action]."

According to Ousley, focusing on Sokka's struggle with the absence of his father is the direction the showrunners are taking.

"He’s dealing with what it means to not have his father and try to maybe lead when you're not fully capable," Ousley said.

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The original creators of the animated series are not a part of the live-action reboot.