Miah Week 7 - "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and Disability

 Avatar: The Last Airbender and Disability

        Okay. Hi. It's been seven weeks of this. I don't think I have any more ideas for how to start blog posts without just saying hello. I've tried everything from opening with a little joke to throwing you into the topic headfirst like a violent mother bird trying to teach its child to fly, and now I'm out of ideas. It's time for me to greet you like a normal human person.

        Hi. Hello. It's me. I remembered that Avatar had more than one disabled character today, and now it's your problem.

        For the single person who doesn't know, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a children's animated series that aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. I could go into the lore of the elements and the plot, but this blog post isn't a summary, and I really don't want to catalogue what these cartoon teenagers did for three entire seasons. The important thing to know is that, in the world of Avatar, an estimated 30% of the world has manipulation over one of four elements: water, earth, fire, or air. (With the exception of the Avatar, master of all four elements; but when the world needed him most, he vanished, and I don't count no-shows.) The "Airbender" part of the title refers to the act of "bending" an element to your will; in this case, air. Let's talk about disability now.

        When you think "disability in Avatar", the first thing that comes to your mind is probably one of the deuteragonists, Toph Beifong. She's a blind Earthbender who can sense vibrations through the ground. Using this, she sees with her feet.

        Do you see the problem? Toph was one of, if not the, only normalized blind character in a children's show at the time of her appearance, and she could still see. Don't get me wrong, it was groundbreaking (ha) to have a major character be blind, but real blind people can't sense where everything is by stepping barefoot onto the ground. There are some terrains where Toph is rendered truly blind (sand, water, and sky), but for the most part, she doesn't serve a great purpose in normalizing disability with her powers. Blind people don't have super-senses that help them see the world. They're just blind, and that's okay.

        Which is why Teo is the real star of the show.

 

        He has paraplegia and flies jet planes. He also shows up in two out of the 61 episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and he's my favorite ever.

        Okay. Bye.