I have a good friend that really loves the show, and she's an adult but quite a bit younger than me. When she talks about Avatar, her favorite series of all time, I just smile and nod and because I know the story, I'm able to kind of share in their love of it. And I can fake it quite a bit as in, "Wow! This show is so great. It's incredible what they've done." But I wish I knew why people loved this show so much. I think maybe I just was too old for it when it hit the screens for the first time so that I was forever unable to relate to it in a meaningful way. Or maybe it just really is not all that special and the people who are watching it have no life experience to compare it to anything that is actually good. Or maybe I'm the jaded one, and I just can't stand kid actors (the more likely culprit). I mean...I think that the element bending looks cheesy, the plot is meh, and I think that the acting is bad. But I'm only saying this, because my blog feels like a safe space to air these feelings.
If you don't know what this show is about, it has some really big themes built around a world that is not earth but "earth adjacent." People are separated into tribes for their prospective elements, and one of the tribes (the Fire nation) committed an act of genocide on the Air Nation so that they could remain the most powerful. Is this awful? Yes, yes, it is. Did I cry when the Air Nation died? Not really...none of those characters meant anything to me. The main character is a "chosen one" kid who must rise to the occasion and embrace all of his power to make right the various injustices that occur in the world in the absence of an "all powerful avatar" able to wield the four elements. And the rest of it just seems to be fascism gussied up with elemental magic and this chosen one character is the being who will be the anti-fascist and put everyone in their place again and stand up for the weak (which apparently everyone is except for the Fire Nation). It doesn't help much that the whole world of Avatar minus the Fire Nation seems to be a metaphor for the Democratic party in America (clearly not its intention). But if the shoe fits....
So that you are on the same page as me, here's how the New York Times described democrats from an article just this week:
"Why are democrats so congenitally weak? Why did it take a group of former Republicans--the Lincoln Project--to create the nastiest, most effective anti-Trump ads in 2020? There are several reasons, which are impossible for Democrats to admit in public. The first is that they have a reputation as the favored party of the American Bar Association, they're rife with lawyers, they see poetry in a well-turned codicil. They are also the party of the so-called helping professions--teachers, social workers, speech therapists, home health aides, ivy-clotted academics. In general, these are not people comfortable throwing a fierce left hook. And they are the party of identity politics, always sensitive to insensitivity, often to a fault. They care a lot more about appearances, and propriety, than Republicans do."
Only...here's the thing: I'm a Democrat, and I'm wondering why everyone who seems to vote like me is so weak. It's actually kind of frustrating. I know so many people who just basically let others run them over, and the only way they seem to be able to find any strength at all is in vast numbers. Standing up for yourself is difficult (I get it), but there seems to be a phenomenon now where everyone is just collectively depressed, anxious, and kind of paralyzed like a deer caught in some headlights. It's kinda like watching the Fire Nation run everyone over to be honest, and I don't like it at all (but it is what it is). And then to go from that reality to a show like Avatar that seems to celebrate this kind of weakness by literally showing that none of these people are ever going to be capable of standing up to the Fire Nation without a godlike being who has their back...well...it's a message that I don't enjoy a lot. And I wonder why some people do? Because in real life...there is no avatar coming to save anyone.
But maybe I'm just digging too deep on this kid's show. People probably just love it because it features different cultures working together, some good humor, and characters who grow over time. Kids also probably just love the magic...the bending of the elements...and the aesthetic of "that's cool." Wouldn't it be amazing if we could all just use magic to solve our problems? Yeah...maybe I'm just too old to appreciate a kid's show. But I can fake that I like it to fit in. That costs me nothing.
That's basically what I felt when I read the first Harry Potter book. It was OK but I wasn't going to get obsessed about it.
ReplyDeleteThe leadership for Democrats is "weak" because they don't want to offend too many and thus lose their money. Like most Democrats in Congress they won't go too hard after the big corporations and such because then they might not be able to get money from them.
You have hit on the reason why I'm not a registered Democrat (and probably will never be). And why I'm not a registered Republican (and definitely will never be).
ReplyDeleteMy nephew loved that show, but he was like 9 at the time. I've never seen it, so I can't comment on whether your age is the reason it doesn't resonate with you. I know kids shows can be pretty awful sometimes. I've tried to watch some (when the nephews were small), and I am not the target demographic.