Cobra Kai, Saturday Night Fever, & American Politics [Media Notes [157]

I’ve now watched the final episodes of Cobra Kai and I’ve found them satisfying. Not only have the various personal and interpersonal issues been wrapped up in reasonable ways, but so has the central philosophical problem, if you will, that has been with us throughout the series, the difference between the offense-first style of Johnny Lawrence’s Cobra Kai, and the defense-and-balance style of Daniel LaRusso’s Miyagi-Do.

I don’t want to go through how the interpersonal issues have been resolved. If you’re curious, watch the videos, or at least read the plot summaries. It’s this philosophical issue that interests me. It interests me because it extends beyond this franchise. One aspect of is there in John Travolta’s break-out film, Saturday Night Fever (1977). Beyond that, and here I’ll conclude this note, I want to turn to contemporary US politics.

Two fighting styles

The Cobra Kai style emphasizes maximum aggression, “no mercy” is one of its watchwords. The problem with this style is that, when you crank it up to 11, it turns to cheating to insure victory. That failing has been a constant theme throughout the series, first as John Kreese enters the story in the season finale of season one, and is amplified when Terry Silver enters the series in season four.

The Miyagi-Do style, which animated the franchise in the first film, The Karate Kid, is more austere and spiritual. It emphasizes balance and defense. In a fair fight, between well-matched opponents, a Miyagi-Do fighter may beat a Cobra Kai fighter. If not, well, those are the breaks; it was a fair fight. The problem though, is that when confronted with opponents who care little for such things, and who are willing to cheat, the Miyagi-Do fighter has no defense and will lose.

That’s the situation we face in the final episodes. The series manages a subtle, perhaps even complex, resolution of the conflict, though perhaps détente is the better word. Needless to say, and given the conventions governing such stories this isn't really a spoiler, the cheaters are given a resounding come-uppance. The ending is a happy one.

The dance is more important than winning

Saturday Night Fever (1977) comes down on the side of fair contests. John Travolta played Tony Manero, who worked a deadend job in Brooklyn and lived for the dance floor, where he was king.

To reprise a short post from 2013:

In the movie [Tony Manero] sets out to win the dance contest at the local disco. A Hispanic couple danced better than he and his partner did, but he gets the prize anyhow. Why? He is well-known at this particular disco, he is Italian, and so are the folks who run the disco.

It was in inside job. It was corrupt.

Though winning seems to have meant everything to him, he rejects the prize because he feels he didn't deserve it. It turns out that his dedication to the craft of dancing means more to him than the prize. Until he lost this contest he didn’t know that.

Thus to accept the tainted prize would be to assert that dancing, in itself, is of no consequence. If dancing is of no consequence, then what’s the value of being Tony Manero, dancer?

In this case, it wasn’t the opponents who cheated, it was the judges. But the result is the same. Manero turned down the trophy and, following his dance partner, left Brooklyn for Manhattan where, we assume, he seeks a better life.

The parallel with Cobra Kai should be obvious. Dance is for Tony Manero what Miyagi-Do is Daniel LaRusso. For that matter, the same is true of Johnny Lawrence and Cobra Kai. However, the nature of the story has Cobra Kai up against vicious opponents who want nothing less than crushing victory. A legitimate loss to such an opponent would mean injury, possibly severe injury at best, if not death for the loser.

Contemporary American politics

A simple, partisan version goes like this: The Republicans, the conservatives, and above all the Trumpistas (including the Muskovites), will stop at nothing to grab power and win. Democrats, progressives, liberals, however, believe in the rule of law, in adhering to norms, and following procedures (to the ends of the earth if necessary), and will thus lose a political battle rather than go against those established laws, norms, and procedures. Consequently they are losing, and losing bigley, and are powerless before the Musk-Trump juggernaut.

That picture is too simple. But I crafted it to bring out the similarity between the contemporary political situation in America and the themes in these two stories, Cobra Kai and Saturday Night Fever. If the rules are important to you, you will play by them, win or lose. But if winning is everything, then you must be willing to break the rules.

As for the TRUE situation in contemporary American politics, are you freaking kidding me? How would I know? It’s complicated and, like everyone else, I’m biased. Work it out for yourself and get back to me.

Ralph Macchio interview • Kobra Kai [Media Notes 156]

Sarah Bahr, Ralph Macchio on Getting In His Final Kicks in ‘Cobra Kai’, NYTimes, Feb. 7, 2025.

When Ralph Macchio was first approached about doing a “Karate Kid” series about the adult lives of Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, he was skeptical.

“I was like, ‘I’m a car salesman?’” said Macchio, who starred in the original 1984 film as Daniel, a teenage transplant to Southern California, who learns karate and defeats his bully, Johnny (William Zabka), on the mat.

“They didn’t have me at hello,” he said.

But at a meeting that lasted over three hours in the courtyard of the Greenwich Hotel, in Lower Manhattan, the creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg won him over with their vision for that series, “Cobra Kai.” It wasn’t only a nostalgia play. It also looked to introduce a whole new generation of karate kids.

It's the two generation angle that I've found most interesting. On the one hand we have Daniel and Johnny pick up where they left of two decades ago. But they've both got kids, and those kids are into karate too. And they've got their own dynamic between each other and among the other kids. So we've got this rich interaction between these two dynamics.

From the interview:

Is there a specific moment when you remember saying, “Daniel LaRusso absolutely would not do that”?

There’s a scene in Episode 5 of this season when Daniel punches Johnny in the face. And I said, “It really has to be warranted.” And they said, “Well, he’s off-balance, these things are going on,” but it’s not just that. That was a debate because it’s a great scene for William: He gets punched in the face, and he normally would have punched back, but he doesn’t, which is a beautiful thing. It shows his growth. I don’t know if we agreed completely whether it was warranted enough, but at the end of the day, we shot the scene. It works. There’s redemption. But I wanted that to be hotter so there would not be a question of why he would lash out at that.

What was it like watching a new Kid, Xolo Maridueña, effectively play the Daniel role as Miguel?

I don’t like being the old guy, but I like being the guy telling them stories from back in the day, and they all lean in, and they love hearing them. And I’m quite inspired by their work ethic — I remember standing here watching Miguel put the headband on. Xolo was just coming out of his shoes with excitement, and it was just like: “Wow, I was in this backyard painting fences before you guys were born. And now I’m teaching you how to paint the fence and wax the car.” It’s the one time I got truly emotional early on in the show.

Later:

How are you like and not like Daniel?

I’m far more analytical and prepared on the upfront for as many curveballs as possible. I’m not a complete control addict, but I like to hear something out and digest it before I jump. But Daniel — because it makes it far more entertaining — jumps first and then deals with the repercussions later.

We’re very much alike in the sense that his family, his mom, his mentor in Miyagi, are what he holds the highest. He’s a good-hearted person who cares and is vulnerable yet open and positive. That’s who I’d like to believe I am. [...]

If you got to choose how your character died ——

—— going off a cliff with the ultimate spinning tornado kick.

There's more at the link. 

The final episodes of Cobra Kai air tomorrow.

More Cobra Kai: Freud, Girard, and History [Media Notes 143b]

I wanted to follow up on my earlier post about Cobra Kai. Here’s my point of departure:

So, what do we have? A conflict between two teenage boys gets reignited in their early middle age where it becomes amplified into a war for dominance of the karate world. On the one hand, it is rather ridiculous, adults using their dojos as vehicles for working out their conflicts. How Freudian! [Indeed. Think about that for a minute, think about it very seriously.] The series is aware of this and indicates that awareness in various ways.

Freud was interested in how our early life influenced, strongly influenced, our behavior as adults. His theory of psychosexual development placed a lot of emphasis on the early years, especially the first six years, but also – but also of course, especially of course – dealt with the emergence of sexuality in puberty.

Cobra Kai centers on Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso, but their story originates in their middle-to-late adolescence in The Karate Kid and its sequels. That’s a bit late for the really deep Freudian stuff to kick in, but the causal dynamic is nonetheless clear and Freudian in kind. The attitudes, feelings, and actions of these middle-age adult men follow patterns set in place in their adolescence. Not only are we told about this past, but we see scenes from the early films.

But the Freudian dynamic goes deeper than that. For it also explores the earlier life of the men who taught Lawrence and LaRusso, John Kreese and Mr. Miyagi respectively. We see scenes from Kreese’s experience during the Vietnam War and before and are led to understand how they have made him the bitter man he is today. LaRusso travels to Okinawa and learns things about Miyagi that he hadn’t known, including something about his early experience with competitive karate the full nature of which has yet to be revealed (we’re two-thirds of the way into the final season). Moreover, when Terry Silver is brought into the film, another bad guy from the past, we learn more about the origins of the Cobra Kai school of karate, strengthening the shows depiction of the pull of the past.

Cobra Kai is also shot through with mimetic desire and sacrifice. The original conflict between LaRusso and Lawrence centers on a mimetic conflict over a woman, Lawrence’s ex-girlfriend who becomes attracted to LaRusso. In the present, LaRusso’s decision to start a dojo is a mimetic answer to Lawrence starting a new Cobra Kai studio – notice that it is that form of karate which gives the series its name. And mimetic dynamics play out in the relationships among the teenagers at the center of the series, LaRusso’s daughter, Samantha, Lawrence’s son, Robby, and his young protégé, Miguel, and a young Cobra Kai student, Tory Nichols.

The sacrifice dynamic is a bit trickier, but the series features a number of karate tournaments and a number of gang battles between the rival dojos. Kenny Payne and “Stingray,” among others, emerge as sacrificial victims in those battles, and then we have the grand melee that ends episode ten on the sixth season. This takes place the Sekai Taikai, an international karate tournament to determine, in effect, the dojo of dojos and anoint the best karate style. The tournament breaks down in a free-for-all battle involving, not only the karate students, but their teachers as well. [Spoiler alert] The battle comes to a dramatic end when one of the student fighters, Kwon, a particularly arrogant fighter, accidentally kills himself with a knife he’d picked up off the floor. The knife had been dropped by Kreese, who’d intended to kill Silver. We’ll have to wait until February to find out what happens next.

Think of the scope covered in the series: from Vietnam, Okinawa, Korea, and America in the mid 20th century through to an international tournament three decades into the middle of the 21sr century. That’s a big chunk of recent history, albeit centered on actions involving only a group of individuals. No nation-states take part in the conflict. This is no War and Peace, but it is, nonetheless history, and it is history displayed in patterns analyzed by Freud and Girard.

Why is Cobra Kai better than one might have expected? [Media Notes 143a]

When Cobra Kai first showed up on Netflix back in 2020 I noticed it – Oh, the karate kid continues, that’s nice – but had no interest in watching it. But then I read something, perhaps this piece in The New York Times, indicating that it was actually rather good. So I decided to give it a try.

I liked it, I actually liked it. It’s a martial arts movie, and I’ve got a minor interest in such movies. But it’s got more going for it.

You may remember that back in 1984 there was a film called The Karate Kid, which was about a teenaged boy who is mentored by a middle-aged Japanese handyman and karate sensei. The film did fairly well and was followed by a couple of sequels. I have a vague recollection of having watched, I don’t know, that last half of the original film on TV at some time. But that was the extent of my involvement.

Cobra Kai is a sequel to those films, but with a twist. Rather than pick up where the original series left off, it starts when the teenaged protagonist of the original film have reached early middle age. Here’s how the Wikipedia entry explains the premise:

Thirty-four years after being defeated by Daniel LaRusso in the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament at the end of The Karate Kid (1984), Johnny Lawrence suffers from alcoholism and depression. He works as a part-time handyman and lives in an apartment in Reseda, Los Angeles, having fallen far from his wealthy lifestyle in Encino. He has an estranged son named Robby, from a previous relationship, whom he has abandoned. In contrast, Daniel is now the owner of a successful car dealership and is married to co-owner Amanda with whom he has two children: Sam and Anthony. However, Daniel often struggles to meaningfully connect with his children especially after his friend and mentor Mr. Miyagi passed away prior to the series’ beginning.

After using karate to defend his teenage neighbor Miguel Diaz from a group of bullies, Johnny agrees to teach Miguel the way of the fist and re-opens Cobra Kai. The revived dojo attracts a group of bullied social outcasts who find camaraderie and self-confidence under Johnny’s tutelage. The reopening of Cobra Kai reignites Johnny’s rivalry with Daniel, who responds by opening the Miyagi-do dojo, whose students include Sam and Robby, leading to a rivalry between the respective dojos.

Whereas The Karate Kid had Johnny Lawrence as the bad guy (“villain” doesn’t seem quite the word) and Daniel LaRusso as the good guy, Cobra Kai is not so polarized. Both men get to be jerks and both get to be decent and sympathetic. But they maintain their antagonism and work it out through their respective dojos, Cobra Kai and Miyagi-do.

So we’ve got action on two strata, among the adults and among the teenagers. The teens are motived by their own romances and beefs and join one dojo or another in the process of working things through. But Johnny and Daniel pick up the conflict from their youth and use their dojos as a vehicle for working it out. That conflict is cloaked in different martial arts styles. Cobra Kai blunt, aggressive, and brutal while Miyago-do strives for ‘balance’ and is more ‘spiritual.’ The stylistic difference is obvious in the fights ¬– of which there are many – and is the occasion for much conversation throughout the series. There’s even an attempt to blend the two styles in opposition to yet a third dojo which shows up in the middle of the series.

Which is to say, things get complicated. More actors, more complex interactions, kids moving from one dojo to another as their relationships between one another and with their elders shift. By the second or third season the two dojos are fighting of karate dominance in San Fernando Valley. By the sixth season – in process, 10 episodes are online, the last five will come next year – we’re talking about dominance of world-wide (teen) karate. Somewhere in this process we see genuine evil, with people getting seriously injured and even killed.

So, what do we have? A conflict between two teenage boys gets reignited in their early middle age where it becomes amplified into a war for dominance of the karate world. On the one hand, it’s rather ridiculous, adults using their dojos as vehicles for working out their conflicts. How Freudian! [Indeed. Think about that for a minute, think about it very seriously.] The series is aware of this and indicates that awareness in various ways. 

It’s brutal, but also lighthearted and funny. And there’s plenty of fighting, well-choreographed, and well filmed. It’ll be interesting to see how things end.

* * * * *

And exercise for the reader: Like so many things these days, this series just begs for a Girardian interpretation. On the one hand we’ve got mimetic desire operating on individual relationships. But we’ve also got larger scale sacrificial rhythms revealing themselves in the various gang battles and organized tournaments. Who are the scapegoats?