Anyone watching Cobra Kai Season 6?

I guess not.

OP, I'm a HUGE "Cobra Kai" stan! I wasn't even that big a fan of the movies, and I had no idea the show even existed until it moved over to Netflix, but I'm truly not kidding that it was one of the ONLY true great things I discovered in 2020! Happy to nerd out over it.

I watched S6 (part one) in under 24 hours. I was worried they'd run out of material by now – S5 was definitely getting too far off the rails – but aside from the one filler episode where Johnny hosts a sleepover at Devon's house, I thought it was great all around, with VASTLY better fights this season.

And the cliffhanger!! Did NOT see that coming!!! (and I usually see this shit a mile away)

R2 Oh, that's great -- now I'm interested in seeing it. I actually cancelled Netflix a while ago since I never watched it any more. I was never a big fan of the movies, either--I actually only ever saw the first one, since I don't like sequels a lot. I have enjoyed the series a lot so I will have to start watching it again.

I never saw any sequel beyond the first, and that was all back in middle school for me. I know Hilary Swank was in a third one (fourth movie in the series), and there's been talk ever since the reboot started that she'd cameo in it – most of the main actors from the original movies have shown up at some point, including Elisabeth Shue; Swank is the last holdout – so there is yet again talk of her showing up in one of the next two parts.

The show is a comedy in quite a few ways, but like "The Bear," it has a lot of drama mixed on (but not "Bear"-level drama, thankfully). Focusing a reboot on Johnny, the former himbo villain played by a talented actor who's been a good sport about being an '80s cliche (rich blond high school douche, perhaps best epitomized by James Spader in "Pretty in Pink"), was both brilliant and a great way to look at how the original wasn't exactly "progressive." (The entire cast was white aside from Mr. Miyagi, who was played by an American actor doing a not-great "cliche Japanese" accent.)

I truly do not know how Ralph Macchio looks THAT good in his 60s!

Maybe not a lot of non-white kids were doing Karate in that part of the Valley in the '80s.

Apparently they saw a lot of actors for Miyagi and Macchio himself questioned the choice of Pat Morita, originally. But did the actor playing Mr. Miyagi really have to come from Japan, originally, just because the character did?

Pat Morita was born in California.

Yeah, but who cares? Are you saying that if a character is born in Japan only Japanese actors born in Japan can play that character?

No, R5, it's entirely due to the fact that Hollywood largely only cast white people back in the '80s (and really more like into the 21st century). Pick any given iconic movie from the '80s, and aside from exceptions like Eddie Murphy, casting directors for small (or smaller) roles chose white actors by default. The obvious exception is for "ethnic" roles, but many of them – *definitely* including Mr. Miyagi – were rooted in stereotypes that would be completely unacceptable today. Pick any given John Hughes movie as an example, and "Sixteen Candles" still has one of the most offensive Asian stereotypes in modern film history. Even "90210" – which, perhaps surprisingly, debuted only six years after "The Karate Kid" – depicted a nearly all-white Beverly Hills, and even back *then* it was only about half-white (unlike the show, IRL Beverly Hills has a large Persian population, along with dozens of other ethnicities).

Pat Morita's best-known role aside from "The Karate Kid" was on "Happy Days," which may be the most Americana-specific TV shows to ever become a huge hit. For Mr. Miyagi, he used a decidedly stereotypical Japanese accent, never mind his near-complete lack of actual Japanese mannerisms. It's kinda "cringe" in the same way as Jar Jar Binks' accent, albeit much less extreme and less noticed at the time, and even when used by people of Japanese heritage, it's now viewed as racist. Anyway, no one's arguing that only native Japanese people should accept roles as such, but as has been argued quite well on "Cobra Kai" itself, martial arts are in no way specific solely to Japan – which, ironically, is a stereotype that the first movies created! (following in Bruce Lee's footsteps) Same with karate being the "only" martial art of note, at a time long before MMA became a thing.

Finally, karate wasn't a "thing" in the US until the kung fu movies of the '70s had gained considerable popularity, and then "The Karate Kid" itself built on the stereotype of karate being the "primary" martial art. Taekwondo, jiu-jitsu, etc. didn't start gaining popularity until the late '90s, partially due to the stereotypes created by "The Karate Kid" (and it was "The Matrix" that popularized martial arts in general, despite one of Neo's most famous lines being his surprise that, "I know kung fu!").

Anyway, the series has both embraced and owned its original stereotypes, and Johnny Lawrence is in some ways akin to Archie Bunker in terms of being set in his ways (even if he's not openly racist per se). His ignorance of the internet is obviously over the top – as shown in the first or second season, he'd never previously used the internet! (or heard of Google or Facebook) – and his son Robby is one of the surprisingly few young white male characters who's anything other than a total asshole and/or villain. OTOH Miguel – established early on as having Ecuadorian roots – is basically his adoptive son, and Johnny & Miguel's mom are about to have a baby. Robby also "has" to be white, since he was conceived when Johnny was still a retrograde degenerate.

Back in the 80s, it was only 40 years after WWII and many WWII vets were still alive. My mother said she still didn't always feel comfortable with people from Japan because of the war. This is probably very hard to understand, now. Not based on the fact of their race, but because they were enemies during the war, were seen to have attacked us, and their soldiers committed atrocities against American POWs, etc.

As for 90210 being an all-white cast (though after a while they added ethnic characters) I suppose this was just the accepted way to appeal to a the majority-white audience in the time period. It was racially insensitive rather than overtly racist, because most of us never even thought about it. Most of the shows were like this.

A fact is I grew up in an all-white neighborhood, except for a family that was Chinese-American, and a family where the dad was white and the mom was Korean. This was in the 1960s. As far as I know, the true story of this could not be filmed as a TV series because there probably would have to be black characters for the TV series to be green-lit. That seems strange because it would not be depicting reality.

But anyhow I thought we could talk about the new season of Cobra Kai.

[quote]As for 90210 being an all-white cast (though after a while they added ethnic characters) I suppose this was just the accepted way to appeal to a the majority-white audience in the time period. It was racially insensitive rather than overtly racist, because most of us never even thought about it. Most of the shows were like this.

Yes, most Hollywood productions were similar, but that doesn't somehow excuse it. (And "90210" only had "ethnic" people as side characters. Not sure if Andrea marrying a Hispanic guy helped at all.)

[quote]A fact is I grew up in an all-white neighborhood, except for a family that was Chinese-American, and a family where the dad was white and the mom was Korean. This was in the 1960s. As far as I know, the true story of this could not be filmed as a TV series because there probably would have to be black characters for the TV series to be green-lit.

Considering Hollywood wouldn't even let married couple share the same bed onscreen until not far before 1960, or let characters use the word "pregnant," I'd agree that it was definitely fucked up. OTOH it's not like non-white people were *never* cast. Cicely Tyson played the first Black female lead character on TV in 1962 IIRC, and Diahann Carroll of course did "Julia" later in the decade. (Also, "Star Trek" was obviously an outlier in this respect.)

Not clear what any of this has to do with "Cobra Kai," however.,