Given that my primary text for my thesis is an entire TV series, I had trouble figuring out which prompt to select and what to write about. Ultimately, I decided that prompt #2 would make the most sense for me and set out to find primary sources contemporaneous to the run of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The most obvious place to start was to look for reviews, and while results on Jumpstart and in film databases were not bountiful, I was able to find two of interest.
The first was a short review from Video Librarian, a resource that essentially contains reviews of tens of thousands of films and TV shows. It caught my eye because it reads like those succinct, to the point book reviews of academic monographs that sum up the work and then give a judgment on whether it’s worth the reader’s time. This review by T. Keogh was in the same fashion, giving a rating of 3.5 stars out of 4 (in between “good” and “excellent”), and ending with the glowing endorsement: “Highly recommended.” The review only covers the first DVD set of season 1, which is just a few episodes, but I found it interesting how Keogh chose to summarize the series. They focused on the fact that Aang, the protagonist, had been in an iceberg for 100 years and was tasked with restoring balance to humanity.
There is no mention of the fact that Aang is, as the title of the show suggests, the last Airbender—the last of his people after a brutal genocide that Aang escaped by pure chance. The premise of Aang being the last of his kind is central to the show’s theme and plot—he’s not only the last airbender alive, but as the series takes place 100 years after the genocide of his people, the Air Nomads, he’s the only person alive with knowledge of their culture and customs. Since the Video Librarian is used as an academic resource as well and is not necessarily geared towards children, I found it a bit surprising that this element of the show was ignored entirely. The violence underscoring Avatar feels obvious to me, but this review makes me question how much attention people paid to the colonialist violence and genocide rather than focusing on the beautiful animation, the character arcs, or the concept of elemental bending.
The second review, from the New York Times, appeared ahead of the release of the series finale. It seems to get closer to the heart of Avatar, focusing specifically on Aang’s struggle as a pacifist who has to stop the genocidal Fire Lord. Everyone expects him to kill the Fire Lord and sees it as the only possible end to the Fire Nation’s colonial rule, but Aang was raised to be a non-violent pacifist and only uses violence in self-defense. It’s a tenet he adheres to throughout the series, but the reason why it’s so salient is that it is in direct relation with his Air Nomad culture. As the last Air Nomad and Airbender, he feels a responsibility to preserve the culture as best as possible. He refuses to let go of the teachings of the monks who raised him, a lingering connection to the life he was robbed of.
This review, by Susan Stewart, touches on that to some degree, recognizing the complexity of balancing Aang’s religious and cultural practices with his duty and the expectation of violence. But, Stewart says, it’s a hard topic to broach that is “beautifully rendered” in the series finale. I’m inclined to agree. But more importantly, it seems that by the end of Avatar’s run, viewers and reviewers seemed to form a better sense of the heart of the show and the difficult, often tangentially violent topics it deals with. For me, this exercise proved to be a fascinating way of seeing not only what people thought of Avatar on a base level, but how they thought about it. Everyone consumes and analyzes media differently, so to see which themes reviewers wrote about, some of their takeaways, and interpretations of the story was helpful for me. It’s a reminder that not everyone is going to be consuming media through the same lens.
Works Cited:
Keogh, T. “Avatar: The Last Airbender–Book 1: Water, Volume 1.” Video Librarian, vol. 21, no. 3, May 2006, p. 57. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=da6a1d18-cd43-39c4-a4f6-dda3698624f1.
Stewart, Susan. “Though raised by pacifists, destined to battle for peace.” New York Times, 19 July 2008, p. B15(L). Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A181561704/AONE?u=carl22017&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=4e027d18.
First of all, I’m absolutely obsessed with ATLA being your primary text – I cannot wait to read what you come up with! Secondly, this is a great angle to explore Aang’s relationship with his faith/heritage and beliefs – his pacifism is a huge part of his character and approach as an Avatar. During Season 3 there’s definitely a lot of conversations between the group about how Aang approaches his eventual fight with the Firelord, so that’s a great place to start. I also recommend looking at the new Netflix live-action remake — it really dives into the genocide of the Air Nomads and expands upon the original. It also places this event at the beginning of the whole show, which is an interesting change in the narrative. May be useful to look at!
Avatar: the Last Airbender is such a cool focal piece for your thesis! I think the two reviews you analyze are very interesting, and the second one pairs really well with the episode and texts you used for your class discussion. I wonder if the series’ presentation as a kid’s show causes some older viewers to just pass it off as that without really digging into the show and what it is saying? Also, speaking of Aang’s pacifism and dedication to preserving Air Nomad culture, how are these topics depicted in the comics versus the show?
Your point about Aang being “the only person alive with knowledge of their culture and customs” reminds me of the episode of ATLA where Katara steals the waterbending scroll from a smuggler. ATLA as a whole seems to emphasize the far-reaching nature of colonialism; not only is waterbending suppressed in the Southern Water Tribe, but most of the instructional materials on waterbending are stolen artifacts that are illicitly traded on the black market. It’s reminiscent of a lot of the modern discourse surrounding the British Museum and several other famous institutions–who gets to protect culture? Who gets to possess important artifacts relating to the promulgation of a suppressed/endangered culture?
This is such an interesting topic, and it’s making me want to watch this show! What’s especially interesting to me about this is that Avatar was geared primarily towards kids. I wonder how this younger audience responded to these themes of violence and anti-colonialism. Since I’ve never watched the show I can’t speak from personal experience, but it seems to have had a pretty big cultural impact on our generation that I think would be interesting to look into somehow.