Given that this blog is focused on the sociological analysis of popular culture. I would be going against the very premise of this blog if I didn't talk about the recent I-cloud celebrity hacking scandal. In line with a lot of other sources have reported and analyzed, this is a crime and it needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Looking at this issue Sociologically, I need to address the issues of gender sexuality and female agency, as well as privacy and entitlement in our voyeuristic culture.
Gender, Commodification, and Female Body Agency. Any type of social analysis of this event needs to begin with a look into gender, commodification and female body agency. The nature of this sort of crime can't truly be understood without mentioning that this hack targeted female celebrities and their personal nude photos.
Our culture consistently commodifies and sexualizes women's bodies. Advertisements consistently use women's bodies (both whole and dissected bodies; over-emphasizing sexualized body parts) to entice the consumer and promote them as the prize for using their product. This is just one of a myriad of example in which our culture perpetuates that women's value is only in their bodies. Specifically, women get the message that their value is in their body as both a sexual object for male pleasure, and as vessel for the next generation in the form of child bearing. Because of this, women's bodies get commodified and understood by men as being openly accessible to them as both a goal and a reward for various types of participation in society. Thus, not only do men feel entitled to women and their bodies (especially in public), the invisibility of male privilege results in a state of false consciousness where men feel emasculated by female civil liberties and gender equality. Due to this type of false consciousness, many men feel (and are taught) that when they are emasculated, their manhood can be regained through sexual violence; often times rape and sexual assault...an assault like the hacking of personal nude photos.
Secondly, this attack on female celebrities can be viewed as a form of cultural punishment for having the agency, autonomy and body positivity to create those pictures in the first place. As mentioned before, women's value in our culture is, in part, found in the sexualizing of her body. In our culture, that sexualizing is not for her own pleasure. If it was, more girls would be openly taught to masturbate and not to feel shame for being sexual or wanting to have sex. This shame is a part of the virgin/whore dichotomy that identifies that sex is only acceptable for women when it is in the confines of a committed relationship (usually marriage), for the purposes of reproduction. Therefore, not only is women's value primarily located in their bodies, but it is also identified as the source of her moral character. So when a woman exhibits sexual agency over her body, and rejects body shame through the creation of nude photos, the action is so outside the cultural norm that the woman needs to be sanctioned, punished through the criminal distribution of those photos. Through the stealing and the distribution of those photos a woman loses the agency of her body she once had by creating them. The most extreme ( and hypocritical) example of this sanctioning and shame is the attempted use of these pictures in an art gallery project that commented on the dangers of computer hacking. On top of which, female celebrities have been victim blamed for having taken those pictures in the first place. Attempting to shame women into following misogynistically restrictive cultural practices.
Privacy and the Celebrity Culture To some, embracing any form of celebrity means that the individual person's privacy is forfeit; that being a celebrity means that you're life is open access to the public. This sense of public entitlement to the lives of celebrities has its origins in the way that "reality tv" (as a medium/genre) has blurred the line between celebrity and civilian; where there is no required talent or skill to become famous. This line is then further erased through the implementation of social media allowing anyone to be the stars of their own videos. Thus, a lot of the criminal acts levied against celebrities (such as this one) are attempted to be justified by some as a desire for transparency. In reality, this is a symptom of the larger voyeuristic culture and the desire to have a close intimate connection with those in the public eye.
Final Thoughts
There needs to be a wide spread public understanding that the hacking and distribution of these images is considered a sex crime and needs to be prosecuted as such. There also needs to be a broad understanding that anyone who searches out and or views these images are an accessory to the same sex crime. Much like other types of sex crimes, the blame should not be placed at the feet of the celebrity victims but on the person(s) responsible for the hack and (more broadly) our culture for the inability to give women sexual/body agency and female celebrities any semblance of privacy in their lives.
The 7th film in my
comprehensive analysis of The Films of Christopher Nolan is the mind bending InceptionNolan’s first original work since his first film Following,Inception took over 8 years to write. Initially conceived as a
smaller film, Nolan soon realized that if he was going to tell a story about
the intricacies of the mind, and the ability to navigate it, that he needed a
much wider canvas (and budget) on which to paint. From all accounts (the producers and the
director himself) Inception, as a potential film, was always in the background,
a labor of love that Nolan would work on during or in between other
projects. When The Dark Knight reached the box office record of 1 billion dollars,
Warner Bros. (the studio that has been Nolan’s most frequent studio
collaborator) gave Nolan’s Inception,
considered by them to be his “passion project”, a green light as a reward/thank
you. With multiple academy award nominations (including best original
screenplay for Nolan) and a win for Wally Pfister’s cinematography, this
“gamble” paid off for the studio both critically (86 % on Rotten Tomatoes) and
commercially bringing in a whopping $825,532,764 at the end of its box office
run.
PLOT
To stop a monopolistic energy
company, a rival competitor (Ken Wantanabe) hires Dominic Cobb (Leonardo
DiCaprio), a thief specializing in an esoteric form of psychic espionage to
plant an idea into the C.E.O’s (Cillian Murphy) mind in order to break up his
company. Tempted by the chance to return home after the death of his wife
(Marion Cotillard) Cobb assembles a team that includes: A point man (Joseph
Gordon Levitt), a forger (Tom Hardy), an architect (Ellen Page), and a chemist
(Dileep Rao) for their most difficult job…Inception.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
“What is the most consistent parasite? ...an idea.” –
Cobb
Inception
is
a rich complex film with as many layers of social and psychological analysis as
there are layers of the dream state.
While the film often tends to identify itself as purely psychological,
blurring the lines between wakefulness and dreaming, examining how we process
loss and pain through dreaming (a form of dream therapy), and solidifying the
importance of belief. Looking at the
film sociologically though, we can see a number of themes that touch on the
social constructionism, the presentation of self, Socialization, and an allegory
to filmmaking.
“What is real is real in its consequences.”-
W.I. Thomas
Theme I: Social
Constructionism
Social
constructionism has its origins in both the sociological theoretical
perspective of Symbolic Interactionism and the earlier philosophical idea of
Pragmatism. The basic idea of Pragmatism is that what individuals consider to
be reality does not exist in any concrete space. Rather, reality is actively
created by those who live within it.
Symbolic Interactionism focuses on the individual within society having
the ability to interpret reality through the use of symbols. Symbols are
objects in social reality, both tangible and intangible, that have expressed
social meaning (Blumer 1969)[1].
These symbols are created and maintained through social interactions and
observations. Each different social setting or situation carries with it its
own set of rules and norms (and therefore a different reality) causing a type
of “shock” as the individual moves from one situation to another.
For Berger and Luckman (1966)[2],
the collective understanding and adherence to particular language, rituals,
belief systems, norms, and values shape the reality of both the individual and
the group. Therefore, the individual living within society is an active
participant in the development of both the collective consciousness of a group
of people, and her/his own perception of the world. This is because as we try to interpret and understand the rules and
norms of reality by interacting and observing other people, by that very same
action we are creating reality. This is because our actions in society are
observed and analyzed by others for their own understanding. To them, our
actions become social messages to regulate their own behavior. This is what Berger and Luckmann (1966)
allude to when they identify “society as objective [and] subjective reality”
(p. 47-183).
Berger
and Luckmann (1966) illustrate this in the following passage:
The reality of
everyday life further presents itselfto
me as an intersubjective world, a world I share with others. This
intersubjectivity sharply differentiates everyday life from other realities of
which I am conscious. I am alone in the world of my dreams, but I know that the
world of everyday life is as real to others as it is to myself. Indeed, I
cannot exist in everyday life without continually interacting and communicating
with others. I know that my natural attitude to this world corresponds to the
natural attitude of others…Most importantly, I know there is ongoing
correspondence between my meanings and their meanings in this world, that we
share a common sense about reality…The reality of everyday life is often taken
for granted as reality…It is simply there…I know that it is real. While I am capable of engaging in doubt about
its reality, I am obliged to suspend such doubt as I routinely exist in
everyday life. (p.23)
In the film, Cobb echoes these
sentiments when he explains the concept of shared dreaming; that in the dream a
person’s mind, quite efficiently, creates the world of the dream while
perceiving it at the same time. This is not unlike the way that we exist within
social reality. By living in society we interpret meaningful symbols but then our actions are interpreted by others to help them construct their own
reality. Thus, we are creating (for others) and perceiving ( for ourselves) reality much in the same way we do in our dreams; though
in our dreams, we do not experience the world in a linear fashion.
This scene is interesting because not only does it succinctly explain the way we socially construct
reality, but it suggests that this process can be interrupted or
manipulated. In the film, when a person
is in the dream state, they are vulnerable to manipulation and their knowledge
and secrets can be stolen through a process called extraction. Or, more
nefariously, an idea can be implanted in their head through inception. In social reality, the behaviors of
extraction and inception are performed through the process of Socialization,
the clearest examples of which come from media advertising and the
manufacturing of desire.
Theme II:
Socialization is Inception.
Socialization is the process of
social learning that individuals have to go through staring in childhood and
ending at a person’s death. This is a
life-long process because we do not have the intellectual capacity when we are
children to fully understand all of the roles and responsibilities that we will
take on as an adult. Therefore, information and learning is broken up into more
manageable/digestible pieces, segmented and separated by elaborate “rites of
passage” administered through complex agents
of socialization.[3]
It is this process, and these agents, that shape how we see the world. Therefore
our perception of the world, and our interactions within it can be manipulated.
One of the best examples of such
manipulation is through advertising. It
is the goal of advertising to manufacture desire for a particular product or
service. This advertising is done in a
variety of different ways: through entertainment (making a product feel
exciting and a gateway to a “good time”), through the appeal to the past (usually
using nostalgic images and music to appeal to a person’s childhood/youth) or by
using sex (which is predominantly done by the sexualizing and dismembering of
women’s bodies). This has become so much
a part of our culture that a lot of it has an unconscious effect. Yet, this unconscious effect does not just
apply to our desire for goods and services. Jean Kilbourne (1999)[4]
identifies that when ads are created they do more than just sell products; they
sell values and ideals about what is acceptable and normal in our society. Thus, through a catchy jingle, or a childhood
memory, these subtle ideas about what is sexy, acceptable human value, race and
ethnicity, masculinity and femininity are “inceptioned”
into us; meanwhile allowing us to think that our perception of the world (and
how we think about it) are solely our own.
Theme III: The
Presentation of Self.
“When an individual enters into the presence
of others, they commonly seek to acquire
information about him or to bring into play information about him
already possessed.” Goffman 1959: 1)[5]
The presentation of self is theory of
self-construction. Erving Goffman in his
doctoral dissertation, postulated that if we observe and interact to make sense
out of the world (see above) at some point we realize that others are doing the
exact same thing and looking at us for that information. Therefore, according to Goffman (1959), we
attempt to control how other people see us, to maintain a particular impression
about how we are perceived in the minds of our onlookers; whom Goffman (1959)
calls our “audience” (p.17).
We constantly perform for numerous
audience members for each specific impression we have. Whether it be at home
with your family, out with your friends, or at work, this performance is always
on. In these different spaces we use different language, different mannerisms
we engage in conversations about different things, in hopes to be seen a
particular way by our different audiences.
This process can be so powerful that the performer can “be taken in by
his own act; he can be sincerely convinced he can be sincerely convinced that
the impressions of reality that he stages is the real reality” (Goffman 1959:
17). However, even those of us who are
not taken in by our own performance understand that we don’t perform all of our
impressions at once, there are certain settings for a performance what Goffman
(1959) calls stages/regions.
These stages/regions are typically
divided into a binary: the front stage/region and the back stage/region. The front stage is given to the name where
the performance takes place, and the back stage is given to the area where the
performance is dropped and worked on (Goffman 1959: 107). Goffman also looks at
the way that social settings are constructed and notices that a majority of the
social world we live in is divided into frontages and back stages. We even do this psychologically, we give a
performance in a particular social setting, but when we leave that setting, or
we are not in front of that audience, our performance (for that particular
impression) is dropped. It is this constant raising and dropping of
performances that may highlight weakness in our own impressions. For that,
Goffman (1959) says we need teamwork and tact.
Teamwork is “any set of individuals who co-operate
in staging a single routine” (Goffman 1959: 79). An example of which could be a teacher and
her/his students creating and maintaining an impression of a classroom to any
outside observer (whom would become their audience). Tact is a set of behaviors that are employed by
team members, or sympathetic audience members, when an impression begins
to fail. Whether this is directly helping to smooth over cracks in a person’s
impression (as a team member might), or to ignoring those cracks when they occur, tact is a number of behaviors
an audience member might use to maintain the overall impression structure. Essentially, tact is used to protect a person’s impression,
because if one person’s impression fails, that puts all of the impressions in
jeopardy.
The presentation of self in Inception are the projections.
Projections in the film are images of people or objects in the dream that are “projected”
by the sleeper’s subconscious. This also includes the way each dreamer
looks. The way each person on the team
looks in the dream is a representation of how they see themselves or how they
want to be seen. Thus through this dream “projection” they are trying to
maintain a particular impression. If you look closely, each character has
subtle differences in their appearance that says something about
self-construction. Most commonly these differences are in clothing and
hairstyle; they tend to be more groomed with more expensive clothes this gets
into what Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls “taste”[6]
(which can be used to determine social class positions). It seems however that in order to get at the
socially constructed self of the characters in the film, you need to look at
their totems.
A totem (in the film) acts as an anchor
allowing the dream sharer to know when they are in reality and when they are
dreaming. It is a specific object that is unique to each person that has a
special property which only that person knows about. The way that the totem
acts and/or feels in the dream and in reality allow the dreamer to tell the
difference.
Totems we see in the film and what they
mean:
Dream Reality
Cobb: Wedding Ring Wearing it on his left hand Not wearing it
Mal: Top Spinning
will never stop Will
stop naturally
Arthur: Weighted Die Weighted side not down Weighted side down
Ariadne: Golden Bishop Will not fall correctly Fall on weighted side
Eames:
Poker
chip Multiplies
when rubbed together Nothing
happens
In regards to the presentation of self,
I find it very interesting that Cobb’s totem is his wedding ring and he only
wears it in the dream. Is it because he can only see the projection of Mal in
the dream, and therefore the only place he still feels married? Cobb does say to
Ariadne that “in his dreams they are still together”. I wonder (in the context
of the story) if this started after Mal’s death or if this was his totem before
(because in the film he mostly uses Mal’s). Did he use the totem in the same
way to distinguish reality before? This could also just be a clever way for the
film makers to allow the audience to keep track of whether or not they are
seeing a dream.
Mal is the other great example of the
presentation of self. In the film, we never see the real Mal. She is either
seen in flashbacks where she is depicted as mentally ill due to Cobb’s
successful inception, or she is portrayed as Cobb’s projection of her. Therefore, we are never given a clear image
of who Mal was, all we get is Cobb’s poor facsimile of her, and how he saw her
through what he could glean off of her own impression management.
“I
can’t imagine you with all of your complexity, with all your perfection and
imperfection. Look at you. You’re just a shade, a shade of my real wife. I am
sorry, it’s just not good enough.”- Cobb
While
I find this quote to be beautifully written and hauntingly romantic. I also
think this allowed Nolan to cop out a little bit.
In so many of Nolan’s films haven’t been a
showcase for women. Many of his stories (as brilliant as they are) are about white
dudes with angst. Angst that they have to solve by the end of the film. The one
thing that I can say about Inception is
that Nolan gave himself a creative and plausible way of dodging gender equality
(that does not even pass the Bachdel test) by making Mal’s shallow
one-dimensional “fem fatale” portrayal an important plot point. Additionally,
the character of Ariadne is very important to the team, she is the architect of
the dream space that is better than Cobb, and she acts as Cobb’s confidant. She
is the eyes through which we get to know Cobb.
However, it does irk me a bit that we never see her build any of the
dreamscapes we see later in the film, or that the majority of the time she is
having things explained to her, rather than doing something.
Theme IV:
Allegory to Filmmaking
Christopher Nolan loves film. Even though his
formal training is in literature, he has talked at great length about the power
of film to transform, allowing for experimental storytelling and an immersive
audience experience. It makes sense then that Inception, one of his most personal films (and original work),
would have a commentary on the filmmaking process.
Doing press for the film, Nolan
mentioned that the main cast represents key roles in the filmmaking
process. Cobb is the director, Mal represents the parts of the director that she or he puts into the film (Cobb’s
children is a metaphor for the film being a director’s “baby”), Arthur is the
producer/DP, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Yusuf is
visual effects director, Saito is the studio executive and Fisher represents
the audience. It is through Fisher’s role that Nolan’s commentary and
filmmaking pedagogy is displayed.
Through Fisher’s actions and the way
that the other characters interact with him Nolan is commenting on the nature
and power of film itself. Like Fisher, the audience is the target for the filmmaker,
to make them believe in a particular situation.
Sometimes this can be heavy handed through the use of exposition and a
common mistake of telling the audience something rather than showing them. Nolan brilliantly parodies this in Inception when the team runs the “Mr.
Charles Gambit” on Fisher making him aware that he is dreaming.
As in the clip, the filmmaking technique to
make the audience aware that they are watching a movie (taking them out of the
experience) is risky. But when it is done properly, as I think Nolan does here,
it can get the audience to go along with
you on the journey, the way that Fisher joins the team in the second level
of the dream state; working with the filmmakers to construct a new situation. Nolan seems to suggest that the
willingness for people to be a film audience presupposes that they are
(usually) on the side of the filmmakers; wanting to suspend disbelief and be
transported through storytelling. This
is similar to Goffman’s use of teamwork to create a social situation (see
above). In fact, the title card at the
end of the film reveals that you, the audience, have just experienced inception
by watching the film. The idea of
the story has been successfully implanted in your head, and no one knows, not
even the filmmakers, how the story will affect you; it could be a minuscule form of entertainment or it could completely change your whole social
viewpoint. For Nolan, that is the true
power of film.
PRODUCTION
Script
As was mentioned earlier, the script
took 10 years to complete. Originally written as a spec script presented to the
studio after Insomnia Nolan opted to
work on it a bit more, fleshing out the dream world by constructing diagrams of
the levels of the dreams and solidifying the rules of this universe. To that end, Nolan only mentions the origin
of the shared dreaming technology once, in what seems like a throwaway line Arthur
says:
“Shared
dreaming was originally designed by the military to allow soldiers to simulate
combat. They could kill each other over and over again without getting hurt.”
As
a sociologist, I find this deeply intriguing. This seems so plausible that it
scares me. It makes me wonder if Nolan is trying to make some type of veiled
social commentary about the military and technology, much in the same way he
gives the same sort of commentary about terrorism, and social class in the
later films of The Dark Knight Trilogy. To
me this statement could be easily applied to the way that the US military uses military
video games as both a recruitment tool, and a way for current soldiers to brush
up on battle tactics, hand eye coordination, and desensitization to violence
and war.
Visual F/X
Like his previous films, Nolan
does not use a second unit. All of the
shots are composed by Nolan and Director of Photography Wally Pfister. To that end, there is a level of consistency
throughout all of Nolan films. There is never a shot or a sequence that seems
out of place or not to Nolan’s sensibilities. In this film, what I found
interesting is the way that Nolan frames the dream world. I can only imagine
how much of a challenge this must have been, balancing the abstract nature of
dreaming with the structure of the film so that the audience isn’t alienated. This seems to be a bit easier for a director
like Nolan who consistently uses a non-linear story structure, which lends
itself to be able to tell a story set in the dreamscape.
The greatest example of the use of
practical effects is the gimble used in the rotating hallway scene. Inspired by
Kubrick’s use of the rotating set in 2001:
A Space Odyssey. Team Nolan created a hallway set (simulating the second
level of the Dream, Arthur’s level) that was able to rotate 180 degrees.
Cameras were mounted on the set to give the feeling of the rotation of the
room, while a crane mounted camera was uses to get the stable wide shots making
the action seem like it was taking place in shifting gravity.[7]
When the scene eventually shifts from
rotating gravity to zero gravity Team Nolan broke the sequence up into three
segments; in each segment they used a different rig to simulate the
weightlessness, effectively hiding the camera tricks from the audience. It is
sequences like this prove Nolan and Pfister to be amazing filmmakers and
supports Pfister being garnered with an Oscar for his work on the film. Special mention needs to be given to the
dedication and stamina of Joseph Gordon-Levitt who did the majority of his
stunts in this scene. Gordon-Levitt was
on the rotating set (having to learn a complex fight choreography in the
process) and on each of the three different rigs used in the zero gravity scene
in order to maintain the investment of the audience in the situation.
Music
Once again, Hans Zimmer is charged with
bringing musicality and lyrical life to Nolan’s films. Using the foundation of an Edith Pilaf song
(who Marion Cotillard played in La vie En Rose to win an Oscar) heard in the
film Zimmer constructs this masterpiece:
However
is a common misconception that Zimmer wrote this piece used in the third
trailer
Direction
It is a shame that Nolan wasn’t even nominated
for a best directing Oscar for this film. The film was nominated for a much
deserved best picture Oscar, although I assume this was a political move because
The Dark Knightwasn’t nominated for
best picture in 2008. The directing techniques used in this film to maintain
such a complex story a float while being able deliver spectacular set pieces
needs to be recognized and it consistently makes me angry that Nolan has been
passed over time and time again for much deserved recognition. The fact that Nolan has NOT been honored in
this way, proves to me that American cinema, and the majority of American
audiences, have lost the desire for the filmmaking craft and just want to see paper
thin stories held together by blurry CGI nonsense. YES! I am looking at YOU
Zack Snyder and Michael Bay!
CONCLUSION
This is my favorite, non-Batman Nolan
film to date. It is also one of the most Sociological films I have reviewed to
date. It is a great film with complexity of characters and story that does not
pander to the lifeless idiot masses that are just looking for escapism. Nolan
returns us to the craft of filmmaking that is rapidly eroding through the use
of technology, sluggish box office results, and unwillingness of the audience to
be enthralled. It is my hope, with InterstellarNolan will be able to capture the magic of the film in such a way that
ushers in a new era of well-crafted and critically successful filmmaking.
[1]Herbert
Blumer (1969).Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. p. vii
[2] Peter Berger
and Thomas Luckmann (1966). The Social
Construction of Reality: A treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge New York:
Anchor Books.
[3] The
individuals, organizations and institutions that assist in the process of
socialization throughout the life course (trajectory) of an individual. They
include: The family, daycare, schools, peer groups, the workforce and the
media.
[4] Jean Kilbourne
(1999). “Socialization and the Power of Advertising” In Seeing Ourselves: Readings in Sociology 7th edition eds.
Nijole Benekrautis New York: Pearson.
[5]Erving Goffman
(1959). The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life New York: Anchor Books
[6]Taste is the idea
that through the consuming of products, entertainment and other aspects of
culture, a person can maintain a false impression. The careful
manipulation/display of taste, can result in having a false consciousness to
your actual social position in society.
[7]Geek Aside: The fight choreography that takes place
in the rotating hallway and in simulated zero gravity it excellent. It is full
of practical real world and useful martial arts techniques: the taisabaki
throw, brush, grab strike (aka hand pass) wrist locks and ground fighting front
guard top choke. Bravo!
Created by Michael DiMartino and Brian Konietzko, Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the greatest animated shows ever created. Although originally conceived and marketed as strictly a "kids show" by distributing it through Nickelodeon studios and originally airing it on Saturday mornings; Avatar became a show for all ages with its complex layered story lines (involving season long story arcs,) and integrated rich character development while weaving religious (Buddhism) and Philosophical themes throughout its three season run. The show did not pander, and treated its audience like adults. To that end, Avatar: the last Airbender is an excellent example (if not the paragon) of a racial diverse, post modern, pro feminist show that deals with current social issues as told through the lens of a fantastical world.
PREMISE
Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in an ancient world heavily influenced by Chinese Mythology. In this world the earth is divided into four different nation based upon the four natural elements ( water, earth, fire and air). There is the Northern and Southern Water tribes, The Earth Kingdoms of Ba Singh Se and Omashu, The Fire Nation and The Air Nomads. Each of these nations have a culture and rituals that is influenced by their totemic element. Additionally, members of these nations are often born with the ability to manipulate their respective element. This behavior is called "bending".
The titular "Avatar" is a single person in the whole world who can "bend" and master all four elements. Having a life cycle of 170 years, the Avatar acts as a spiritual leader, guide and general force for peace in the world (i.e. The Dali Lama). At the end of an Avatar's life (by natural or unnatural causes) she or he is reincarnated into the next element/nation in "the Avatar Cycle" (see above).This not only allows the Avatar to live on throughout history, the cycle of reincarnation allows the Avatar the ability to tap into the power of all her/his past lives at a single moment. This is called "The Avatar State"
BOOK 1: WATER.
Plot
Book: 1 Water Begins 100 years after The Fire Nation declared war on the entire world. Avatar Aang (a 12 year old boy of the Air Nomads) and his animal spirit guide Appa, a flying bison, are released from a hundred year hibernation in an iceberg by Katara, and Sokka: siblings of the Southern Water Tribe. After some spiritual guidance from one of his past lives (Avatar Roku) Aang learns that he must master all four elements and confront Fire Lord Ozai before the end of summer which hails the return of Sozin's Comet which gives any Fire bender unbelievable power, a power that was previously used to wipe out all of the Air Nomads 100 years earlier to start the war.
Having only mastered the element of air, Aang and Appa, together with Katara, Sokka,and a flying lemur named Momo, must travel to the Northern Water Tribe to find a Waterbending Master so Aang can learn the next element in the cycle. Their journey is complicated by Prince Zuko the banished son of Ozai that seeks the Avatar in order to return to the Fire Nation and regain his honor.
BOOK 1: WATERANALYSIS A Rough Start
The beginning of any show is always a period of adjustment as the creators attempt to find their footing, solidify their tone in relationship to the theme they want to present, while creating and maintaining audience interest. Avatar was no different. In the beginning, (especially the first few episodes) the show focused on child friendly humor of sight gags, physical comedy and small amounts of toilet humor. There was also little to no reference to the story complexity, religious and philosophical themes that populated the later seasons. Additionally, the early episodes animation was blurred and unclear (as they weren't yet digitally producing the show's animation in HD). While this was a a bit rough on an older audience when it first aired, it was a hit with the younger audience.
Yet, in retrospect, it is refreshing to see the characters that you fall in love with at the beginning of their journey, full of hope, and humor considering all that will happen to them later. Thus upon multiple viewings, these earlier episodes are enriched with the audience knowledge of the future. You start to see all of the seeds that the creators planted that pay off one or even two seasons later.
Some of the best Seeds in Book 1:
Iroh redirecting Lighting for the first time in the series
In the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe all of the bending arts are based on different types of Chinese martial arts. The creators of the show had the martial art bending form be a representation of each Nations respective element. Therefore each martial art bending form represented one of the four bending elements. Tai Chi with it's focus on fluid movements is the basis for Water-bending. Hung-gawith its ideas of soft (Crane) and Hard (Tiger) power that is rooted to the ground is the basis for Earth-bending. Northern Style Shaolin with its dynamic movements and linear movement encompasses Fire-Bending Finally, Baguahas a lot of circular movements and deflecting strikes that makes it perfect for Air-bending.
Throughout the rest of the series other martial art forms are brought in to either explain a particular person's unique use or ability to bend the elements that maybe outside the standard styles listed above. Or they explain a form of fighting in the Avatar universe that does not involve the bending of the elements. In Book 1, one such fighting style is that of the Kyoshi Warriors. Their style of fighting is based upon the redirection of a persons momentum and force focusing on keeping their opponent off balance, they also use Fans, shields and Katanas; which makes their fighting style a combination of Aiki-juitsu, Tessenjutsu (war fan) and Battojutsu (art of the Katana). This also means that this is one of the few fighting styles in the Avatar universe that is based on Japanese Martial arts styles. Author's opinion: They are Bad Ass. Evidence:
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Race and Ethnicity
Avatar is one of the few american shows with a principle cast of characters that are all non-white. Each nation in this world is based on an Asian and Pacific Islander Ethnicity (API). Through a careful analysis of the way each character is drawn, and the cultural customs and rituals they adhere to, it is clear that each Nation's ethnicity has the following primary cultural influences: The Fire Nation are Chinese, The Earth Kingdoms are Mongolian, The Water Tribes are based on the Inuit and Eskimo cultures and the The Air Nomads are Tibetan. Additionally, as previously mentioned, Kyoshi island is proxy for Japan.
However, even though each nation has a primary culture that they draw upon many other diverse Asian culture practices. From ideas of filial piety, honor, shame, cycle of life, and the balance of nature that we see in the series all come from eastern philosophical teachings (Taoism, the I Ching, Buddhism etc). Additionally, some of the practices performed by certain leadership the Avatar Universe such as a coup, totalitarianism, censorship of information often parallel governmental practices of China and North Korea.
Looking more deeply into these real world parallels it becomes clear that there is an allegorical similarity between The Fire Nations genocide of the Air Nomads and the current real world conflict between China and Tibet. The historical conflict between the Mongolians and China is inverted in the Avatar universe; positioning China (The Fire Nation) as the Invading army and the Mongols (The Earth Kingdom of Ba Singh Se) protecting themselves behind a "great wall". (* though alluded to in Book 1, these become major events during Book 2) Thirdly, the size and political social power of the Inuit and Eskimo cultures in the world today ( only 120,000 people identify as such in only three countries: Greenland, Canada and the United States) is paralleled by The Water Tribes in the world of Avatar.
Unfortunately, when the film adaptation of Book 1 was produced, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan all of the protagonists were portrayed by white actors and the antagonists were portrayed by middle eastern or Indian actors. A gross misrepresentation of the diversity of the show this lead to a huge public outcry and resurgence of activism around the "white washing" of racially diverse characters in film and TV now re-dubbed Racebending
Feminism
Throughout the whole of the series, Avatar: The Last Airbender consistantly, (and pretty excellently) defys socialized gender norms, stereotypes and promotes gender bending outside of the binary system of gender classification (otherwise known as The Gender box model). Many of the protagonist show a layered and contexual gender identity that is a part of their personality Consistently, the show features multi- faceted male and female characters that move beyond the socialized male/female, masculine/feminine dichotomy. Three prime examples are the Book 1 protagonists of Aang, Katara, and Sokka.
Aang is written and portrayed as a non-violent pacifist (given his training by the monks) who is emotionally invested in the balance of nature and its animal inhabitants. Aang's masculinity is not based in violence,or bravado but in caring and compassion for all life. This compassion is his reason to fight when he has to (in self defense) but only when all other avenues of diplomacy have been exhausted. In Book 1, we see Aang's natural airbending nature is to avoid and evade. And in later seasons he has a problem with facing a problem head on and standing his ground. (more on that later).
Katara is the heart of the group she perfectly balances the complexities of modern femininity. She is the person that actively challenges the archaic sexism that her culture is steeped in the ways that she openly argues with her brother and, at the end of Book 1, challenges an old (male) waterbending master's sexism, by dueling him...and is able to change his mind. Katara is fiercely loyal to her friends and family she is able to both stand her ground and fight but also be a healer.
It is through Sokka that the show really expresses its feminist message in Book 1. It is Sokka's reformation from sexism to gender equality that solidifies the show's egalitarian message. In the first few episodes of the series he expresses the socialized sexism of his culture. As the episodes progress, and his sexist notions of the "weakness" of women are proven inaccurate time and time again, (by his interactions and relationships with (Katara, Suki, and Yue) Sokka slowing starts to embrace the show's message of feminism (even going so far as training with the all female Kyoshi Warriors and protesting the lack of female agency of arranged marriages) by Book's end.
The Feminism of Avatar has been written on extensively and This section will be expanded on in a separate post about Feminism in Avatar after the three book review has been completed. Until that time, read This, This and this.
Favorite Episodes in Book 1:
1) King of Omashu (BUMI!!!)
2) The Warriors of Kyoshi ( 'Nuff said)
3) The Waterbending Master (See fight above)
4) The Blue Spirit ( character development and great action)
5) Siege of the North parts 1 and 2 (Season finale Show finds its footing)
CONCLUSION
While I believe Book 1 of Avatar to be the weakest of the show's three seasons, it is still better than 95% of material that has been produced. Its shaky start gives way to a solid foundation by books end. That foundation, at its core is about character, feminism, equality and diversity. This foundation that is built upon with the superb Book 2: Earth that is considered the shows equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back.
