Hybrid Culture in Avatar the legend of Aang

Avatar the legend of Aang is an American animated television series that aired on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante Dimartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz.
This is a western-eastern or American-Asian inspired animated television series created by Americans and produced in United States. If we talk about American-Asian, it means that there is a mixture that creates a new culture or experts usually use the term of “hybrid culture’.
The definition of Hybrid Culture itself is :
in short, it means the mixture of cultures. Hybrid means: things composed of differs elements. And if we talk about cultures there are some cultures that we can see like artifacts, the people, house, cloth,. The culture that we can not see is like the norms, language, behavior etc.
So I can conclude that hybrid culture is : culture that composed by two or more different cultures which is mixed or blended.
In this paper, I will try to analyze the hybrid culture that existed in this American animated television series, Avatar the legend of Aang.
Before I start to analyze, I will try to see avatar from the creator’s background. Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante Dimartino revealed from an interview that they love Japanese anime, Hong Kong action and Kung fu cinema, Yoga and Eeastern philosophies. These are the influences that led them to the initial inspiration of Avatar.
Avatar itself consist of many eastern culture that we can see from the name of the characters, traditional Asian Calligraphy they use, the skin color of the characters, how they dressed, and the setting of the ‘Avatar universe’. It also consist of western culture like the norms, relationship of the characters, and behaviors or their way of doing things.

To create the universe of Avatar, we can see that it borrowed Asian Arts and mythologies. Avatar itself is Hindu mythology means the one who attains union with spirit and then returns to earth to help humanity.
The name of Aang is taken from Chinese name means “peace”, while the other names like Azula, Katara, etc are not Chinese name. just like the names, the ethnicity of the characters are also diverse. From Aang physical appearance I can conclude that he is Chinese. While Katara and Sokka are Tibetan or maybe Bhutanese.
The mixture of cultures, religion, and mythology probably the most profound influence in this animation.
Four different bending skills which are the focus of the stories, were each designed with their own basis in a specific real world martial arts discipline in China, :
- firebending is based on Northern Shaolin Kung fu
- waterbending is based on Taijiquan
- Earthbending is based on Hung Gar
- Airbending is based on Baquazhang
North and South water tribes are Tibetan on Physical appearance with Eskimo cultures that we can see from the outfit they wore and the ‘igloo’ house. The swamp is mostly Amazonian with language based on deep south of USA. The game at the “beach” episode based on a Brazilian game with some hints of their martial arts.
Ba sing se city having a lot of elements of New York during old times. Kissing scenes often appeared. It’s a lip-to-lip kiss between zuko and his girlfriend and between Aang and Katara. Of course this is western culture, for Eastern this is still taboo especially for kids, yet most of the audience of this animation is kids. The party scenes in the episodes of “private island” is where Zuko, Azula, and their 2 other friends invited to a party. The party obviously western style, we can see it from how the people doing things in the house, some drinks, music, and people on the dance floor.
From the definition of hybrid culture in the opening, I can conclude that, there is obviously a mixture of culture in Avatar the legend of Aang. We can see for examples:
- in the western-style party in the private island episode, it’s a western/ American party inside an Eastern house. The cup they used for drinks is Chinese traditional cup made of clay. Inside the house we can see so many Eastern house interior like Chinese porcelains and old Japanese calligraphy.
- In the kissing scenes we can see how the cultures mixed. Aang, 12-year-old Chinese boy kissed Katara’s lips. Its obviously not an Asian culture because for Asian it is still taboo.
From these hybrid cultures that existed in this animation, I can conclude that this phenomenon can not be separated from the creator’s influence. The creators, Michael Dante and Bryan Konietzko are American born and they lived with American cultures. However, as I had stated before, they were really interested in Eastern Legends and Lore.
” the boundaries of hybrid cultures are negotiated and able to absorb diverse cultural influences” ( Homi K. Bhabha, the location of culture,1994)
and I think this is what happens here. Avatar created by absorbing many diverse cultural influences. So we can not say whether it is a purely Chinese or purely Americans.