Children Television Show Critique: Communications & Media Essay

Television Critique
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February 21, 2021
Part 1
Understanding the relationship between the elements of a film and its overall goals is essential for anyone. It allows him to understand better how each piece correlates with creating a cohesive whole that would shape the show's aims for everyone's betterment. In this article, the author would like to focus on the famous children's TV series Avatar: The Last Air Bender. This includes a summary of its episode followed by the aims, techniques, and other film elements used in the said episode. Notably, the author has chosen the 4th episode of book three, entitled Sokka's Master, since it is one of his favorite episodes. All in all, the author believes that this cartoon, as a children's television show, is dedicated to entertaining and teaching various moral lessons to its intended viewers.
Sokka's Master
Sokka's Master is an episode in Avatar: The Last Bender that focused on Sokka and his newly found master named Piandao, who would help him learn the way of the sword. The episode started when Team Avatar had to stop a meteorite threatening to destroy a town that the team happened to be in. During the scene, Sokka was shown to be the only member of the team who could not do anything since he has no bending powers to speak of. Nonetheless, the episode proceeded when Sokka found Piandao's compound, urged the latter to teach him about the swords' way, and built his sword, where he used the material to create it. After that, Sokka overcame each of Piandao's challenges by using his intuitiveness and resourcefulness, which was his most defining characteristic. Finally, Sokka's training ended when he and his master fought for Sokka's lies (about them being fire nation citizens), although it was later shown that Piandao knew that he was traveling with the Avatar and that he merely tested his student whether he is worthy of inheriting the way of the sword or not.
In line with the episode, it could be seen that it merely aims to teach children about the importance of honesty and belief towards oneself to overcome one's weaknesses. On the one hand, it was shown that Sokka is seemingly the 'weakest' member of the group since he does not have any bending abilities. Nonetheless, the audience would later learn that Sokka merely needed to believe in himself and that it was his unique characteristic of leadership, resourcefulness, and intuitiveness that makes him an essential part of the group. In line with the lessons discussed in class, Sokka's intuitiveness that makes him adaptable to every situation is similar to what we call 'cognitive misers.' Cognitive misers are defined as "the tendency of people to think and solve problems in simpler and less effortful ways rather than in more sophisticated and more effortful ways." This is clearly shown when Sokka used his face as the paintbrush to 'imprint his identity in a piece of paper rath...