Cultural influences in the clothing of Avatar: The Last Airbender 🌪

so today I'm going to be discussing the cultural references in the outfits and clothing in Avatar The Last Airbender for those of you who don't know Avatar The Last Airbender was a show on Nickelodeon that aired from 2005 to 2008 and the show is created by Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko the story follows Avatar Aang and his friends as they embark on a quest to save the world which is you know very typical adventure TV show plot but the cool thing about avatar is that it's broke up into four nations the air temples the water tribes the earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation the world-building is very very very obviously influenced by Asian and indigenous cultures and because of that there has been criticism against Mike and Bryan for cultural appropriation and also just general disrespect towards ethnic minorities that avatar is based on which you know I think that's all valid because Mike and Bryan are two white dudes and some of the decisions they made can be taken as quite insensitive this video is not me condoning any of that it's really just me breaking down what is canon and this is just for fun so yeah I'm just gonna be talking about the clothing I'm not really gonna be saying what I would have done or whether or not I agree it's yeah it's just purely purely for fun also as far as sources go like I do want to talk about reliable resources because I do think that's very important regardless of the kind of medium if I feel like I'm trying to educate people I do want to use actual resources the only problem was that it was really hard to find a lot of good English resources on these cultures which is honestly really sad but I did my best and I did use mostly museum articles and nonfiction books to kind of back up what I was trying to find out it's just that there's not a lot out there so I couldn't really have the many resources that I would have liked to have to fact-check them because you know sometimes even like academics get things wrong and especially if it's an academic who is not from this country or not from this culture it some of their work is just you know really portrayed through and outside lens and it's just not really accurate but yeah I I tried my best I'm open to criticisms and corrections because of that and also I tried to pronounce some foreign words that I thought were really important in this video because they describe specific articles of clothing and I felt if I just you know used an English word or try to translate it it just went be the same and it wouldn't be as respectful because you know like words have meaning the only thing is I think I definitely pushed heard my pronunciations I'm not from any of the cultures that I talked about in this video and English is the only language that I can read so it was really hard for me to pronounce some of these words and I just wanted to say before I get started that it's not purposeful and it's not as a sign of disrespect I'm going to include the spelling as I say the words so that people can look up the words in their own time to kind of further along their research or if you're her native speaker is just so you know what I'm talking about I also did not watch Legend of Korra and I don't know if I'm going to but without being said all the stuff that I talked about is going to be just based on avatar to structure this video I'm going to be breaking it up into four sections just based off of the four different nations the air temples are predominantly based on Tibetan Buddhist culture and the air nomads are basically all airbending monks eggs outfit for the first two seasons is very loosely based on Buddhist monastic attire with major stylistic adjustments such as his cape and the loose mandarin collar the origins of man to clothing go way back to siddhartha gautama or the original buddha and he took to wearing a robe that was constructed of a bunch of scrap fabrics that were sewn together and then dyed using natural plant dies the robes nowaday differ based on the school of Buddhism and the region the yellow orange tones seen on Aang are probably influenced by the Theravada Buddhist monks and these are amongst predominately based in Southeast Asia and traditionally they used local plant dyes such as jackfruit and turmeric to get these kind of yellow gold saffron saffron tones in their clothing two-button monks generally wear maroon just because that was historically a common and she died available to them I assume the airbenders don't wear maroon because the Fire Nation is already wearing red and cartoon logic is that children can't tell the difference between those two places if they're all wearing red as far as the silhouette goes I see the most similarities between Aang's costume and shaolin monastic attire Shaolin monks are tied to Kung Fu having historically participated in combat to defend their temples against assailants given this tradition their attire is a lot more practical and that's why they wear pants in the third season Aang modifies his Fire Nation clothing to resemble monastic robes donning his right shoulder which is reflective of the way that many Buddhist monks wear their upper cloth called the attire Sangha while in the privacy of their monasteries the park is seen on most Water Tribe people are inspired by Inuit parkas which are commonly made with caribou skin a caribou skin provides good insulation because the hair is hollow which traps body heat and makes clothing more buoyant and water the fur trim around the hood was commonly made with Wolverine fur Wolverine hair is long and uneven so it does not form ice crystals and reduces the effect of wind this keeps the face relatively warm Inuit women would also waterproof stitches traditionally using sinew as thread which swells when damp on guitarist parka you can see a mosaic design on the front so I want to mention be work as one of the ways that Inuit women would add decoration to their parkas early bees were made from natural materials such as soft stone bones muscles teeth fish skeleton and vertebrae some beads were colored with blood or juice from herbs and berries and they were strung up with the uncoloured white beads to create interesting patterns later on in the 18th century Europeans came over or really just invaded and they introduced glass beads which came in a wide variety colors and that's why we see in some parkas like a lot of these kind of intricate colorful designs using glass beads Katara's summer water tribe outfit is pretty basic I've seen people compare it to kimono or really any Asian dress that has a crossed collar in my opinion though following along with the water tribes cold climate and their Mongolian inspired headwear I would compare her dress to a traditional Mongolian Dell the Dell is a layer of outerwear and most people would wear a simple shirt or baggy pants underneath it the material and design differ depending on the ethnic group because there are a lot of ethnic groups in Mongolia the dough was designed to protect the body for horse riding and also from the cold because a lot of Mongolian ethnic groups were nomadic and also the climate in Mongolia is pretty cold so while on horse the length of the Dell was long enough to cover a rider's knees and the sash supports the abdomen and lower back the sash is actually really long and is in between 2 to 4 meters for women and it's wrapped around the body multiple times the del does not have any pockets so a lot of times people would attach accessories to the sash I would say the earth Kingdom is heavily influenced by China but we also see a resemblance to the Korean Hambach in the k2 lovers episode and Japanese influence in Kyoshi Island gala Ling Tom's hometown she and her parents wear clothes that pretty obviously are based on clothing of the Tang Dynasty the tang dynasty ruled from 1618 to 906 C and it was a very prosperous time for China there was a lot of trade yeah a lot of women's dresses at the time were very reflective of this kind of prosperity they were just very sheer and loose and ethereal flowy Airy all that good stuff um the government was also relatively relaxed and allowed women to wear clothing from other cultures as well as men's riding garments the specific dress that Toph wears is called Shu Xiang arusian which consists of a loose sleeve shirt and a breast high long skirt top shawl is called a people which is a long and narrow strip of cloth often translucent and made of a sheer soft fabric like silk or chiffon in her second less formal outfit Toph wears a Ben B which is a half sleeved jacket Ba Sing se on the other hand is pretty much entirely based on the Ching dynasty which ruled from 1644 to 1912 one major indicator is that we see more men wearing the Q hairstyle the Q originated as a practical hairstyle that was worn among Manju men and the Manchu ethnic group was also known to be very nomadic so this hairstyle was very practical because it kind of solved the issue of having wind like blowing your hair in your face when you were riding a horse when the Manchus rose to power during the Ching dynasty they made this hair mandatory for all men and if you didn't or refused to wear the hairstyle that was considered treason against the Emperor and the punishment was beheading so previously under Han rulership men would grow out their hair men and women would grow out their hair indefinitely because it was anti Confucian to cut your hair we also see a lot of bossing say noble women wearing Qing Dynasty hairstyles one example of that is the liang bottle which is a hairstyle where hair is wrapped around a frame this hairstyle later develops into the dalai headdress which sits on top of the hair the dalai headdress is essentially a large wing like frame made up of wire and cloth and then covered with satin or silk the headdresses are attached to the hair warm predominantly at the end of the qing dynasty and was actually invented by the empress dowager she who was a very fashionable woman and following cultural tradition she needed to wear a lot of heavy ornamentation in hair to kind of visually represent her status and her hair was unfortunately very soft and thin and so it couldn't really hold the weight of these ornaments which is why she started wearing this headdress as like an alternative the Dai Li costumes also look similar to Qing Dynasty civil servants with earth Kingdom insignia where Mandarin squares would generally be Mandarin square is essentially a rank badge that was worn on me on their coats outside of it there are different motifs depending on what kind of official you are but civil servants wore a bird motif because birds are a symbol of wisdom and literary strength and depending on what bird that was that would determine kind of like what rank you were underneath their coats they would wear dragon robes and these dragon robes were pretty intricate and they were actually very beautiful robes which is a shame that they were underneath these coats but that was done on purpose as well because the emperor kind of wanted to drive home this idea that these robes are worn for inner strength and not for like superficial show I would say that the Fire Nation clothing is more original in design than the earth the kingdom clothing which we see is a lot of their clothes is basically direct copies from ancient Chinese clothing but it makes sense because most of the characters from the Fire Nation that we come across our main characters and it would make sense of the creator's would want to give their main characters original designs and that's why when we see Toph who's wearing a very traditional Chinese dress or what looks like a very traditional Chinese dress in her first appearance is wearing a completely different unique main outfit for the majority of the series I will say that something that tends to be overlooked or ignored because of the political parallels between Japan and the Fire Nation is that there's actually a lot of Southeast Asian aesthetic influence in the fire nation we can see that in the clothing with the asymmetrical tops and tube tops and baggy pants and gold jewelry that a lot of the Fire Nation characters or the main characters wear when they go into the fire nation and a lot of those elements are very common in Thai and Cambodian clothing for instance the fire nation's signature pointed shoulders remind me a lot of the cloud collars on Burmese court robes from the 19th century as well as the upturned epaulets in Cambodian and Thai classical dance outfits the classical dance outfits also have banners on the front which we can see kind of in some Fire Nation garb as well overall it makes sense given the tropical climate of the Fire Nation that the creator's would look toward Southeast Asia for inspiration in designing these characters wardrobes but of course there's also a lot of East Asian influence as well for example the military uniforms of the Fire Nation are based on military uniforms of ancient China and the helmets look you based on dragon helmets of the Song Dynasty or samurai helmets that cover the whole face from Japan as in the case of Southeast Asian countries there is a lot of cultural diffusion between countries in East Asia and that's what we see a lot of like similar elements in Japanese Korean Chinese clothing and then that even is de few down to Southeast Asia so a lot of people have compared the Fire Nation military uniforms with Japanese military uniforms I am NOT a military expert but after kind of looking at a lot of military uniforms between the two countries there are a lot of similarities and it looks like the creator's kind of just used a lot of different references in making these outfits if you guys are looking for a more specific parallel we can talk about Fire Nation royalty the robe members wear a small crown on their head secured at the top not by a pin and this crown is based off of the Chinese Guan head wear specifically the Xiao Quan which is historically worn by men of the highest rank but is considered less formal than other head wear choices and actually would not be recommended for the imperial court so that's the end of this video I kind of just wanted to do a brief overlook of all the different clothes that I've seen in the four nations it's no way conclusive or as comprehensive as it could be it's really just brief but I'm hoping that you took some information and I'm hoping that it maybe made you more interested in Asian fashion which is very complex and very beautiful and there's a lot of history behind it and it is such a freaking shame that it's difficult to access compared to Western specifically French English and American resources in this country so yeah I'll catch you later next time

Channel: Mina Le

Views: 251,746

Rating: 4.9555311 out of 5

Keywords: avatar, avatar the last airbender, the last airbender, atla, legend of korra, korra, mike dimartino, bryan konietzko, ancient china, chinese clothing, chinese fashion, asian fashion, nickelodeon, cultural influences, cultural references

Id: idE9k540O54

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020