Keith, part of me wants to come to Night's defense and say that he's had this casting shoved down his throat by the money men. But I can't see him taking that lying down, and he hasn't said a word into any of this that I've seen. Ergo, this one is now on the same list as The Movie About The Ship That Hit An Iceberg And Sank and any Wayans Bros film, never to be watched in any medium under any circumstances.
---------[ Received Mail Content ]---------- Subject : [scifinoir2] Well, There's Always Reruns of the Cartoon... Date : Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:06:41 +0000 From : keithbjohn...@comcast.net To : scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com To follow up Sincere's lead, I found a couple of really interesting posts on the casting of all Caucasian actors for the Last Airbender movie. I'm still a bit stunned at what M. Knight has done. It's just so insulting. Three decades since the silliness of Irish American David Carradine playing a half-Asian in "Kung Fu", and H'Wood doesn't see the insult in taking a world full of nothing but Asian and Inuit culture, and casting all whites as the leads? Worse: I'm reading stuff to make me wonder if the entire show will be people with Caucasians. I always assumed the movie would be filmed in an Asian country, but I'm reading stuff to make me think most of the various populations will be Caucasian too. I'm one of the biggest Avatar fans around, but if this casting holds, I will not be paying to see the film. I just can't imagine sitting in a theatre watching people in modern-day "blackface" eating with chopsticks, writing in Chinese characters, calling each other "Fong" or "Wu". Here are some pics of the leads --hope they come through--followed by a few comments from bloggers. Most interesting to me is how many whites are upset with the casting. Seeing a lot of Asians upset, of course, and blacks as well. Indeed, this quote from a Brother about the whole affair is one of the best I've read: "If they�re supposed to be some generic everyrace, then hell, why not toss in some black actors, or Latinos? That makes about as much sense. Zuko�s a bit of a thug; let�s make him black. Hell, let�s make the whole Fire Nation black; Hollywood loves to make us the bad guys." I'm also seeing that I even I was unaware just how big and widespread the following for the series is. Katara, as played by (non-Asian) Nicola Peltz Zuko, as played by (non-Asian) Jesse McCartney Sokka, as played by (non-Asian) Jackson Rathbone Noah Turner is Ang *********************************************************** http://theangryblackwoman.com/2008/12/10/m-night-say-it-isnt-so/ Nihilunder, on December 10th, 2008 at 9:31 pm Said: As a white person I feel about as condescended to as you do marginalized. Why do the goons in hollywood think white people just won�t see a movie unless the cast looks like them? I mean, look at us: we help drive the imported anime industry, listen to rap music, and eat up foreign movies on those rare occasions when they are offered. Is the message not clear? I can�t help but conclude that they think I�m stupid. �But Nihilunder, what about BET and similar programming that doesn�t get a white audience?� If the product is a quality one, we see it; most visual media geared toward non-whites is of questionable quality, and THAT�S why we don�t spend our money on it. If it�s good, we really don�t much care if the cast is all asian, or all black, etc. Honest. I love Avatar as well, and I�m sickened at how the studio is going to screw this up. Not that I should be surprised, really; just about every movie adaptation of anything ever made has been crap, so why should this be any different? Kristen, on December 10th, 2008 at 9:54 pm Said: I belong to an Avatar community on LJ. We all had mixed feelings about the live-action film, but there was a general assumtion that at least some of the cast would be Asian, and that Katara & Sokka would wind up being played by somebody�anybody�with at least a natural deep tan. When the casting choices were unveiled, you could actually HEAR the excrement hitting the fan. There are a LOT of people who are deeply infuriated by this. It�s insane. It�s stupid. �There is no Asia in Avatarverse� I saw one defender declaim. I suppose. Except for the writing, which is all in Chinese, with scattered Korean. And the clothing, which varies from fantastical to regionally-specific. And the names, which are mostly meaningful, derived-from-Asian-languages ones. And the culture cues, like the background artwork and eating with chopsticks. And the OBVIOUSLY DIFFERENT ETHNICITIES OF THE CAST�S FEATURES. FINE. Talent over race. But you can�t tell me that in the entirety of the entertainment industry, there aren�t three decent actors who could at least vaguely resemble their characters. It�s shameful and ridiculous and I, a white girl from southern California who never makes a stand on anything, am not going to pay one cent towards this film nojojojo, on December 11th, 2008 at 12:15 am Said: I�ve seen a lot of people in reaction to this casting declare that the characters don�t look Asian to them, and I really have to wonder what that means. The character designs, to me, look like Asian people. Not like the caricature Asians too often seen in American cartoons � Asians as defined by white creators, with eye-shapes grossly overemphasized and skin tones that evoke liver failure rather than racial distinctiveness. The characters of the Avatar cartoon look like real Asians, who have widely varied skin colors and varied hair textures and varied bone structures and varied eye-shapes (no, they don�t all have epicanthic folds!). I think the reason a lot of people consider the Avatar characters �ambiguous� is because they�re looking for the caricatures we�re used to, not the realism that the show actually depicts. Because it�s so obvious that the characters are meant to be Asian that I think anyone who says they aren�t is smoking something. Good grief, they write in Chinese characters/Japanese kanji. They use chopsticks and teacups without handles. They have names like Mai and Toph Bei Fong. They wear Korean hanboks and Chinese scholars� robes and Japanese feudal battle-armor and Inuit sealskin. If they�re meant to be white, then why not pepper the show with the trappings of European culture instead? If they�re supposed to be some generic everyrace, then hell, why not toss in some black actors, or Latinos? That makes about as much sense. Zuko�s a bit of a thug; let�s make him black. Hell, let�s make the whole Fire Nation black; Hollywood loves to make us the bad guys. (I nominate Laurence Fishburne for Zuko�s uncle Iroh. �Find the Avatar, nephew, and I�ll show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes��) Lorena, on December 11th, 2008 at 1:35 pm Said: I wanted the actors to be very diverse actually. I thought they had a great opportunity to have a multiethnic cast and they wasted it. Someone from LJ posted this and it echoed my sentiments: �It�s not that hard to get diversity. Earth Kingdom: find actors from Lebanon eastward, Mexico down and Native Americans, Fire Nation: predominately Japanese and Chinese, Water Tribe: African American, Inuit, Indian, Bangladesh and Austrian Aborigines (some have naturally very dark skin and platinum hair = Yue), Air Nomads: Raid a Tibetan Buddhist temple - seriously, they already have the right clothes in the right colors too�. �.and the fact that M.Night and his crew are willing to put white kids in yellowface, brownface and blackface is disgusting, insulting and disheartening.� My grandmother is Egyptian and she always complained that she had to watch generations of movies where our Queens and Pharaohs (especially our black pharaohs!) were portrayed by white actors�.*sigh* and here I thought my children, and other minority children, wouldn�t have to endure similar things. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQdwk8Yntds
