Feminism in Avatar: The Last Airbender

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, feminism is described as; “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of sexual equality”. From this, many feminists believe that both sexes of any race should be equal socially, politically and economically. With nearly every household owning at least one television and with the technological advances in our society, it is hard for anyone not to be influenced by the representations of women, especially children who are subjected to these representations throughout their childhood. Many children’s cartoons in the past, along with some today, seek a more simplistic approach to their characters. The shows are aimed at a specific gender due to the fact that many feel that boys won’t want to watch an action show with a female lead or that girls don’t watch action shows at all, or even using the most simplistic approach as having characters who are simply just bad or good, the villain or the hero, with no meeting point in between. However, a cartoon that is seen to challenge these tropes and to change how we see the role of women from that of a ‘damsel in distress’ to an independent figure that young children of both sexes can look up to, is the Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender which ran from 2005-2008. This is a children’s cartoon which has themes and humour that approaches both adults and children.

Postmodernity in ‘The Simpsons’

‘The Simpsons’ is one the world’s most successful TV shows, and has been running for 26 years. Throughout its hugely illustrious time on TV it has tackled a myriad of issues that other shows, writers and networks wouldn’t dare to handle. It frequently sends its characters to other countries and examines other cultures with its unique eye for comedy, irony and wit.

‘The Simpsons’ presents to its viewers a huge range of diverse and unique characters and has covered almost the entire spectrum of American society. Postmodernism is a perspective which tends to reject many of the accepted values of modernism, and this can certainly be seen in ‘The Simpsons’.  Icelandic scholar Bjorn Bjornson argues that ‘The Simpsons’ through its depictions of such a vast range of societal tropes and cultures contradicts itself in “embracing diversity of cultures’ by creating objectivity rather than subjectivity through representation.

Marxism in The Life and Times of Tim

‘The Life and Times of Tim’ is an animated TV show that ran on HBO for three seasons before cancellation. As the title suggests it follows the adventures of Tim, a thirty-something guy struggling to find his place in New York City. He has trials and tribulations that happen just about everywhere he goes, but of all the places, they happen most frequently at Omnicorp, which is his workplace for much of the shows duration. It is a huge multinational corporation, with a clandestine board of directors and a ruthless manager. Tim, along with all of his co workers are treated poorly by Omnicorp, and the company operates as a faceless entity that can act with impunity in both its treatment of the workers and its global policy.

Postmodernism in Animaniacs

Animaniacs was a classic among children’s cartoons of the nineties and remains a cult favourite to this day. The cartoon was one of several developed by noted director Stephen Spielberg  for Warner Brothers and it is perhaps due to his creative input that the show has remained a cult classic amongst children and adults alike.
The show utilised a sketch format with a rotating cast of characters, each with their own individual themes and in-jokes but the overarching story featured the fictionalised “Warner brothers”; Yakko and Wakko, and the Warner sister, Dot.  Each episode the Warner siblings break free from their home in the Warner Studio’s water tower and cause havoc and mischief across the studio lot.
In fact the Warners explain the entire premise of the show themselves in the show’s opening…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZnEeFQklJc

Post-modern theory came about as a response to the Modernism movement of the early twentieth century and can simply be described as the disappearance of the preconceived ‘real’ under late capitalism in the latter half of the twentieth century.
The main ideas of the theory present within Animaniacs include the concepts of; parody and pastiche, intertextuality, textual awareness and the blurring of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. 

Rugrats and Psychoanalytic Theory

Rugrats was one of Nickelodeon’s original ‘Nicktoons’, and ran for 13 years overall, first airing in 1991 and finishing in 2004.  It has won many awards and inspired many movies, specials and spin-off series’.  The show was enormously popular and centres around a seemingly simple and innocent plot, focusing prominently on toddlers Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil and Angelica, with the later addition of Kimi and Dil. Neighbour Susie also made occasional appearances in their adventures, while their parents, who frequently appeared in the show, remain almost completely unaware of their endeavours.

However when the show is examined more in-depth, it becomes clear that the show fits into Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory.  The connection between psychoanalytic theory and Rugrats has been written about and debated countless times in recent years and this blog post will explain why this is so. 

Scooby-Doo and the Mystery of Structuralism

Scooby-Doo is a popular children’s cartoon which started in 1969 and continues to be in production today. The show focuses around a group of four teenage friends, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and their dog Scooby-Doo, who solve mysteries, usually after a series of mishaps and misunderstandings. Scooby-Doo is extremely successful and has inspired various spin-off works including multiple television spin-offs, specials and several feature films. There are also versions which include additional characters such as Scooby-Doo’s nephew, Scrappy-Doo. The show, which was ranked by TV Guide in 2013 as the fifth greatest cartoon of all time, has won countless awards and continues to be broadcast worldwide. The show follows the same plot and formula in every episode, this formula can be attributed to the show’s success yet also provides the perfect outline for the theory of Structuralism.

Lilo and Stitch and Post Colonialism

In watching both the 2002 feature film and numerous episodes of the 2004 TV series of Lilo and Stitch, we can see the effects of post colonialism that take place in this Hawaiian based cartoon. Following the adventures of the two main characters on the rural island of Kauai, the Hawaiian culture and traditions are heavily incorporated into the cartoon, which, despite being an American conception by Disney, celebrates the differences that are found between the geographically remote Hawaii and the distant American mainland. Lilo and Stitch sets out to romanticize this view of Hawaii while also presenting the challenges it faces due to the influence of American mainland imperialism that are yet to cultivate it in it’s young existence as a US state. The makeup of the characters is also multi-ethnic, portraying Native Hawaiins with a traditional grasp on life as well as non-native Hawaiians, particularly white characters, who bear more similarities to that of the mainland American.

‘The Legend of Korra’ and Post Colonialism

From watching The Legend of Korra, a highly acclaimed show that aired on Nickelodeon, it is obvious that there is a clear theme dealing with post-colonialism and its effects which I shall discuss in this post.

When analysing post colonialism in a text, we must note the word ‘post’ to mean after and therefore I shall also look at the history behind colonialism in this text: The Legend of Korra is set in a fictional world 70years after the events that occurred in Avatar: the Last Airbender, where Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko transformed the Fire Nation colonies into The United Republic of Nations, where benders and non-benders from every nation could live together in peace. After many years of training, Korra moves to the capital of this great nation called Republic City and faces many political and cultural troubles in this city of ‘peace’ and sees the uneasy rest of the effects of the Hundred Year War.

Fear and Loathing in the Middle of Nowhere; Post Structuralism and Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Courage the Cowardly Dog aired from 1999 until 2002 on Cartoon Network and though its run was short lived the show has gained cult status among its fans and has been frequently rerun on the network since its untimely cancellation.

Courage the Cowardly Dog tells the continuing misadventures of the eponymous Courage, an anthropomorphic dog who, as the title suggests, is a complete coward.

Courage lives with his elderly owners; Muriel, a kindly if slightly senile old woman, and Eustace Bagge, a cantankerous old crank who enjoys frightening Courage for entertainment.
The family live in the aptly named ’middle of nowhere’ and are frequently subject to the machinations of monsters, aliens and a miscellaneous assortments of creeps leaving Courage to face his fears and save the day week after week.  In fact this relatively simple premise is summed up perfectly in the show’s opening; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2VnQ4d0QPs.