I'm not talking about the piece of garbage movie directed by M Night Shyamalan either, I'm talking about the pretty good cartoon show on Nickelodeon. So I started watching the show today when I woke up, because years ago I used to really love the show and wanted to indulge in a bit of nostalgia. So the first episode I watched was an episode named The Freedom Fighters, where Aang, Katara, and Sokka encounter a group of child/teenaged soldiers under the command of Jet, and one of Jet's soldiers was a character named Smellerbee. Now, Smellerbee has a pretty androgynous figure, so even I might have mistaken Smellerbee's gender when I first watched the show, back when I was 8 or 9. Now, onto what I was saying. In the episode titled The Serpent's Pass, the secondary story involves Jet, Smellerbee, and Longshot (Another Freedom Fighter) travelling to Ba Sing Se when they meet Zuko and Iroh. Zuko and the three fighters decide to band together for the trip across the lake and steal from the people who have too much on the boat and keep it for themselves. Anyways, here is some lines that occur in part of the show. Iroh: So, Smellerbee, that's an interesting name for a young man. Smellerbee: Maybe it's because I'm not a man, I'M A GIRL! *storms off* Iroh: No, I see! It's a beautiful name for a lovely girl! *Longshot goes to console Smellerbee* Smellerbee: I know, Longshot. As long as I'm confident with who I am, it doesn't matter what other people think. Now whenever I watched this, I immediately thought about transgender people, and what they go through, with people misgendering them all the time and such. Smellerbee seems to possibly be going through a transition during this show, as well. Maybe the creators of the show, after seeing how many people thought Smellerbee was a boy in her first appearance, they wanted to make a statement that would appeal to a transgender audience? Who knows, maybe it's just me being dumb and thinking that there's something when there's nothing. Do you think it could be possible that they put a transgender character into the TV show? If they did it intentionally or unintentionally, I would have to applaud them for it. This just made me think a little, so I thought it may be interesting to see what you all think as well.
Maybe they put the character in the show to see if anyone liked it. Maybe one of the writer's is transgender. Sometimes the writers and producers are just trying to push the envelope of what is on TV.
Underline mine; fixed that for you. There is a chance the character was a subtle address of trans issues. TLA is good for so much stuff there's no way you could write it off.
I definitely think there's something to that. Also Mai and Ty Lee. They definitely had chemistry going on there (IMO).
