By Nikos Tsinakis
Last week, the highly anticipated sequel to the much loved 80’s Karate Kid series was released in the form of a premium streaming show on YouTube – “Cobra Kai” As some of us may have expected, due to the fact that Youtube and it’s parent company Google have had a long history of promoting and harbouring a massive leftist bias, they’ve wasted no time in injecting SJW ideas in their hot new subscription-based Youtube Red show. The show’s premise is set thirty years after the events of 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, the series focuses on Johnny Lawrence reopening the Cobra Kai dojo, which causes his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso to be reignited. This engaging story unfolds as we are introduced to a painfully forced “diverse” cast featuring a Hispanic teenager as the main protagonist along with his group of friends featuring an obese mulatto girl, a Jewish boy, and a Russian kid with some type of autism. Now I know, this story is set in California but even then, this cast does not remotely represent the average demographic of Los Angeles. One must wonder when will this trend of grossly over representing minorities in the mainstream entertainment industry will die off.
Right off the bat, we as the audience got the chance to familiarize ourselves with main character Johnny Lawrence, the antagonist from the first Karate Kid movie. Once a menacing school bully, jock and popular kid, now he’s just a washed up middle aged American guy with a set of more than typical problems that many people can relate to, working odd jobs just to pay his child support/alimony while living in a subpar apartment where the most basic utilities don’t work. I must admit, Johnny(Played by William Zabka) was undisputedly the highlight of this 10 part mini-series as the villain-turned-hero narrative of his manages to keep me engaged over the constant underlying reminders of political correctness. Although a common theme does become established as our hero begins his journey to self-discovery and reopens the iconic “Cobra Kai” Karate Gym, Johnny’s macho 80’s male mentality starts to conflict with our contemporary society’s values where everyone is oversensitive and should be policed in order to use words carefully so no one’s feelings would get hurt. This is evident when he called his young Karate students as “pussies and losers” for not willing to get rough and receive punches to the face as a necessary step to get better in this art of combat. It all starts to go a little downhill, however, when his character progression causes him to lose aspects of his “toxic masculinity” as he realises he was being too harsh on his students( so much for the “no mercy” Cobra Kai motto) because, in this day and age, you’re just not suppose to be an alpha male that says what he wants and still be a likeable protagonist.
A good example of forced diversity: The high school bully happens to be a skinny and awkward Asian kid, seriously???
If you must cast a non-white character, at least have someone with the stature and build of a football player. Just goes to show that, when hiring actors solely for the purpose to fulfill a racial quota instead of the actor’s merit, it has an extremely adverse effect on the storytelling and the audience’s immersion to it. This is an issue in Hollywood that spans across smaller production like this as well as big budget billion-dollar box-office movies such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
It is still possible for anyone to dive into this show and fulfill their childhood nostalgia while obtaining a pleasurable viewing experience if they so choose to turn off their ears at whenever preachy moments about “equality” and “tolerance” began to sprout up. This is where I’d suggest you readers to check out Youtube Red’s offering of a 30-day free trial which can be canceled immediately after you’re done with the show.
In the end, we as the consumers of these manufactured entertainment mediums must stand up to Hollywood’s SJW cultural Marxist agenda. A bottom line has to be drawn to show that we are not willing to swallow every bit of leftist propaganda they’ve been shoving down our throats. Youtube’s Premium streaming service is named “Red”, you know what else is Red? Communism. Coincidence? I think not.
Goldfire Media 