Avatar is a screaming hell of a lot better than (for instance) Scooby-Doo. I would much rather have a kid watch a series that discusses things like honor, friendship and loyalty than something featuring a poorly-drawn Great Dane and his stoner wackjob owner, their “meddlesome friends” and adventures in one-dimensional foolishness.

There’s style to Avatar, and it’s leached from the animé influx; that’s a good thing. Until the mid 1990s, most American cartoons were pure shit, graphically, thematically and dramatically. We’re seeing a turnaround and shows such as Avatar or some of CN’s lineup are leading the way.

That said, yeah, I’m not certain it’s jut air that Aang is bending here, if you know what I mean.

colin: Heh. I’m the art director where I work; it’s part of my job to stay on top of graphical trends, including cartoons. That makes me insanely lucky,* since I’d be watching at least some of them anyway. 😉

And it seems to me that paying attention to what your kids watch is, in fact, part of taking care of them.

Why people care might have to do with the way culture is shaped, at least in part, by popular entertainment; and a lot of that entertainment begins now with kids too young to read or write yet. It matters, at least to some. Doesn’t mean you have to watch it or like it, but it also means that others who do care about toons might not be quite as juvenile, out of touch or contemptible as you seem to believe.

In any event, Avatar is considerably less inane than most of the spew produced by Nick.

koopa: The nadir for T&J came in the 70s, when they were recast as friends. Barf. Thank non-god for Ren and Stimpy‘s reformulation of that goofy approach.

Kerry: Agree 100% on DBZ. The first time I saw promos for it a decade or so ago (this was when the first version was running on CN), it was advertised as “the best action animé ever”.

Um. Whut?

I still find that claim utterly baffling next to, oh I don’t know, Samurai Champloo or GITS: Standalone Complex maybe. (Of course, back then neither existed, so maybe DBZ really was the best action animé at that time. It beat the steaming crap out of Speed Racer or Voltron, to be sure; and was a lot less of a soap opera than Robotech/Macross.)

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* Both adjectives apply quite well to me.

colin: Saying no to TV is too broad; it’s a kind of censorship (as well as totally unrealistic). It makes more sense, I think, to actively pay attention to what they like, talk to them about it, find out why they like it, encourage their intelligent or insightful comments and so on.

That way you engage with them, and can even add to their comprehension of either the story in question or the world in general by discussion, insight, etc. You don’t have to be “immersed” in the show; you just have to be aware of it, and be able to respond intelligently to it. By doing so, you model behavior that you would like to see in your kids as well.

If that’s not parenting, I’m not sure what is.

colin: Thanks.

You asked a fair question. Avatar is pure fantasy, absolutely, and it’s silly to think some hundred-year-old-or-not kid could shake the political structure of his world by jumping on the back of his flying bison (!), shouting, “Appa! Yip yip!” and waving his hands in the air.

The deeper questions come not from the facile plot elements of the Avatar series; they come from seeing how a group of kids can learn to deal with one another and the larger state of world affairs around them; they come from seeing how a blind girl can be seen to have a deep power that is belied by her superficial disability; they come from watching the interplay of small-group dynamics and understanding how the miniature society they create amongst themselves can have a real, large effect on their respective societies.

There is genuine depth to be seen in how Aang and Katara explore their nascent attraction to one another; there is growth present in how Sokka stops being a teen kid with something to prove and struggles toward manhood; there is reality in seeing how they all accept the strength and independence of Toph. There is intensity in finding and sharing their frustrations, annoyances and values.

On the surface Avatar is a goofy adventure story. But underneath it carries a deep set of good, solid values; it promotes friendship, loyalty and commitment; and it lets its characters become confronted by temptation while letting the audience see what they have to face. It’s more fearless and honest than most adult-oriented TV fare in that regard, and for that reason alone I think it’s worth watching.

Without doubt it’s more grounded in meaningful dialogue and circumstance than any “reality” show on Fox; and even though it’s scripted front-to-back in each episode, I think it bears more meaning and value in reality than any ten dozen of other series might present, be they “reality TV” or not.

Suck down the first season on BitTorrent and watch it, if you don’t want to actually rent the DVDs or pick it up in repeat on cable. There’s some real merit to the series, far better than the fare presented to kids just a few decades ago a la The Brady Bunch or Gilligan’s Island; and the series is far more grounded in real-world dilemmas, despite its fantasy element, than Andy Griffith or Leave it to Beaver.

The intelligent comments don’t come from asking your kids if a five-ton bison could fly. They come, instead, from asking if Aang was doing the right thing in riding Appa away from an embattled island while the Fire Nation was busily destroying it — in the name of finding him. Was he a coward? Or did he realize, instead, that he had to get stronger before facing the Fire Nation — and, in the next episode, what do you think he’ll do … and why?

Hey, son or daughter: What would you do?

That’s dialogue.

As an aside, you’re not the first to call me to task about my apparent depth of knowledge of kids’ TV series. One woman I know was stunned when I was able to name, at a glance, every show her seven-year-old son was watching on the TV. She wondered how I could know that; I wondered how she could not know it, given that the shows were being poured into her kid’s head, six hours solid, all day every day.

If you aren’t paying attention to what your kids are watching, who is? And if you don’t talk to them about what they’ve seen, who will? TV is not passive entertainment; it is a powerful and subtle tool of social indoctrination, and should be monitored and questioned at least as intensely as internet channels — or the cloaked stranger on the corner, offering candy to any child who will climb into his windowless van for half an hour.