The story addresses contemporary political concerns about left wing intolerance towards right wing “Trumpian” politics, by avoiding the wholesale rejection of conservative worldviews (and the people holding them), while advocating balance, dialogue and understanding between the generations. In the process, they question, challenge and eventually come to accept Lawrence’s politically incorrect language, conservative gender values and harsh teaching style.Īlthough Lawrence himself is shown to soften towards the end of the series, his students come to use the Cobra Kai philosophy, as their teacher does, as a source of personal strength. The students gradually learn karate as a way to take control over their own lives to “flip the script” and reinvent themselves from cowering “losers” to “bad-ass” cobras. Lawrence’s quest for redemption is tied to the bunch of misfit pupils who join his Cobra Kai dojo, starting with Miguel, a Latino-American boy who gets bullied at school. But rather than write Lawrence off as a deplorable failure, deserving of all his misfortune, the series invites viewers to empathise with him as he struggles to assert the only strength he has, in a world he barely understands. He works demeaning manual jobs and holds problematic views towards women and immigrants. Lawrence is portrayed as one of contemporary America’s “left behind” men. But in the series, it becomes a source of strength and pride for those struggling in a world that has rejected them. In the original film, this is portrayed as an irredeemably negative vision of karate. The narrative is built around Lawrence’s attempts to update and rehabilitate the Cobra Kai mantra of “strike first, strike hard, no mercy”. Through Lawrence and Larusso’s radically different teaching methods, karate is shown to offer a variety of skills, values and pathways to help young people fight back or find balance within this challenging world. Cobra Kai offers insightful commentary on a divided US society, tackling issues such as gender politics, cyber-bullying, intergenerational learning and family relations.
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