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Who ever said cartoons couldn’t be educational? In the first-year Explorations seminar, Bending the Norm: Sociopolitical Commentary in The Legend of Korra, seniors Melinda Rossi and Will Hodge delve into questions of power and identity within the popular Nickelodeon animated series, The Legend of Korra.
The course encompasses three main themes of power, politics and identity, which students identify across four seasons of the show. Though analyzing a children’s television show can be entertaining, the focus of the class goes beyond its elementary appeal:
“The goal is not just to geek out during the first semester, though of course we do some of that,” Will laughs. “Our goal is for them to see themes in the show as a launchpad to deeper issues like power dynamics and cultural appropriation.”
And launch into it they have: the class has covered everything from invisible sources of institutional power to the acceptability of casting a white voice actor as an animated person of color. With villains who find all world institutions corrupt and others intent on liberating the powerless, it is unsurprising that politics recur throughout the course. Each season’s villain maps onto a different governmental system, such as the first season’s representation of a communist regime, the second season’s anarchist tendencies, and the last season’s villain, Kuvira, mapping directly onto a fascist schema by “following the five stages of fascism and actually checking every box.” Network politics are also a hot discussion topic, as students think about how “Nickelodeon as a channel and the creator’s room both influence the product that we consume.”
Yet the course goes beyond a traditional teaching structure—students are encouraged to shape the direction of their own learning by raising individual themes and observations about the show. “We have definitely been adjusting throughout the semester,” Melinda shared. “They bring up things that Will and I had not planned to consider. For example, nationalism came up in class, and we were having some great conversations so we brought in an extra week for that. While we want them to be able to think critically and have discussions about our course material, we are also learning so much from them too.”
Though all in their first year, students come from a diverse academic background, a difference that is respectfully handled in class. “I am constantly impressed by how they are able to keep a dialogue going,” Will exclaimed. “They can disagree but in such a respectful way, I don’t even know if I was at that level when I came in [to Tufts]!”
While The Legend of Korra has many unique elements, Melinda and Will hope that their course discussions will further learning beyond the message of a single television series. “By learning to consume media in a critical way, they are also learning to question ideas and values that come to us externally in our daily interactions with society. The Legend of Korra was a great starting point for that, since its a kids show and you aren’t actively thinking about things like power structures,” Melinda remarked. “I hope that our students see that you can break down a kids show, because it's never actually as simple as you’d think.”
About the Author
Emma Hodgdon is a senior studying English literature. Apart from reading Gothic fiction, she can be found practicing cello for the Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, or dancing with the university’s ballroom dance team. She spends her free time experimenting with calligraphy, learning to speak Chinese, and caring for her succulents, Verotchka and Geraldine.
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