Water, earth, fire, air: Banal nationalism and Avatar: The Last Airbender

Abstract

This article argues that children’s media can be a powerful source for embedding nationalist assumptions from an early age, by looking at Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel The Legend of Korra. In the shows, the world is divided into four discrete nations. Drawing on Billig’s concept of banal nationalism, I intend to explore how, despite being critical of nationalism, they nevertheless reinforce and communicate core tenets of national ideology: that nations are the natural way of organising the world. This then leads to wider conclusions about how children’s media can communicate and embed these ideas.