‘Cobra Kai’ gives a subtle but powerful lesson on white privilege & entitlement

The motto is a psychology and a way of life that everyone exercises, which includes exercising the paradigm of white privilege and white entitlement.

Can Hoang Tran
14 min readMar 3, 2022

WARNING: DO NOT read this article any further until you have watched all four seasons of Cobra Kai. While this article does contain season four spoilers, it will chafe a specific demographic of readers.

Cobra Kai, since moving from YouTube after its second season to Netflix from season three and onward, has enjoyed tremendous success, reviving The Karate Kid franchise. I found Cobra Kai to be a refreshing continuation of The Karate Kid franchise, even more so when it doesn’t focus solely on Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso.

It’s great to see how Johnny and Daniel grew since the events of that fateful match at the All-Valley Karate Tournament. I also loved the developing human portrayal of the main and supporting cast, especially how Cobra Kai humanized John Kreese and his journey into how he became the person he is today.

Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy,” the creed of the titular Cobra Kai dojo, is an important device to the story’s plot, especially how each individual interprets it.

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Can Hoang Tran

Veteran citizen journalist who enjoys martial arts, indie & foreign film, anime, manga, gaming, music, and martial arts. https://linktr.ee/aeonxtrigger