Obligatory Picture:
Today, exactly 5 years ago, The Legend of Korra ended on a shocking note, with Korra and Asami agreeing to go on a vacation in the spirit world together alone and staring at each other's eyes. Three days later, Michael DiMartino, one of the co-creators of the series, confirmed that Korra and Asami were in a relationship on his tumblr blog. This marked one of the first explicit LGBT relationships in Western Animation for children. While many western animation shows beforehand have had LGBT relationships they were usually either background characters or the shows were aimed at adults (and usually weren't that great). To have two of main cast, including the main character of the show, to be explicitly bisexual was quite a shock.
Now, I do want to mention that while I say explicit, I do so in semi-quotations. Despite the parallels to the wedding shown a few minutes earlier (not to mention the bisexual flag colors in the background during the final scene), there isn't an actual explicit confirmation of the relationship. There is no kiss, no calling each other girlfriend/sweetie, etc. It was vague enough that people were denying the relationship until the creators explicitly said it. But I do think Korrasmi is the one show that caused a gateway to more LGBT relationships being more explicit in Western Media for children.
Shows such as the Loud House, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, The Dragon Prince, She-Ra, and more have pushed the boundaries of LGBT relationships since then (while Steven Universe and Adventure Time existed before hand, they got more explicit in LGBT relationships as the years go by). I do hope that the boundry is kept pushed until it breaks and we can have openly LGBT characters in children's media without any of the hiding required to show them even still. As such, I wanted to celebrate one of the more major boundary breaks today.
Today, exactly 5 years ago, The Legend of Korra ended on a shocking note, with Korra and Asami agreeing to go on a vacation in the spirit world together alone and staring at each other's eyes. Three days later, Michael DiMartino, one of the co-creators of the series, confirmed that Korra and Asami were in a relationship on his tumblr blog. This marked one of the first explicit LGBT relationships in Western Animation for children. While many western animation shows beforehand have had LGBT relationships they were usually either background characters or the shows were aimed at adults (and usually weren't that great). To have two of main cast, including the main character of the show, to be explicitly bisexual was quite a shock.
Now, I do want to mention that while I say explicit, I do so in semi-quotations. Despite the parallels to the wedding shown a few minutes earlier (not to mention the bisexual flag colors in the background during the final scene), there isn't an actual explicit confirmation of the relationship. There is no kiss, no calling each other girlfriend/sweetie, etc. It was vague enough that people were denying the relationship until the creators explicitly said it. But I do think Korrasmi is the one show that caused a gateway to more LGBT relationships being more explicit in Western Media for children.
Shows such as the Loud House, Adventure Time, Steven Universe, The Dragon Prince, She-Ra, and more have pushed the boundaries of LGBT relationships since then (while Steven Universe and Adventure Time existed before hand, they got more explicit in LGBT relationships as the years go by). I do hope that the boundry is kept pushed until it breaks and we can have openly LGBT characters in children's media without any of the hiding required to show them even still. As such, I wanted to celebrate one of the more major boundary breaks today.
