Movie: The Last Airbender

[XanBcoo]

Usually when people say they are "color blind" to racism, they don't literally mean that they are colorblind. Yellow is not brown. The idea that unless a character is stereotypically "asian" or "black" or whatever then they are either "neutral" or white is incredibly racist.

How much hand-wringing and nitpicking does it take to excuse that a bunch of pasty white actors were chosen to play Asian/Inuit characters in an Asian setting? This isn't Dragonball, where the characters are ambiguous and without nationality, having many obviously caucasian traits. It's indefensible.

Whatever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN3z257Ss2A

[Munsu]

Usually when people say they are "color blind" to racism, they don't literally mean that they are colorblind. Yellow is not brown.

How much hand-wringing and nitpicking does it take to excuse that a bunch of pasty white actors were chosen to play Asian characters in an Asian setting? It's indefensible.

Whatever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN3z257Ss2A

Asian characters in an Asian setting? Right... influenced by Asian cultures, that's the extent of it.

A movie with martial arts in them clearly has to be about Asians and solely about Asians.

Sure, it's clear that they chose white characters for some of these roles, but the notion that Asians are getting the short stick here is just laughable... particularly as far as Sokka and Katara goes. They could've just as easily been characters that resemble latin mulatos or from African descent. To me they look more Western Natives more than anything.

How many communities are there of dark skinned blue-eyed people? How many of them are Asian? How many nations are there in the world in the poles with Asian communiteis, or dark skinned for that matter?

And to me Aang looks the part quite well. Sukko is the only casting choice I don't understand, and interestingly enough he's of Asian descent... I would've looked for someone that looks like a Japanese.

Of all the nations represented in the cartoon, Fire Nation was the only one that truely resembled physically Asians. All others are just a mix and match. Maybe Wind people, but since we only have Aang around and to me the actor really resembles the character plus he's a martial artist, I don't see why people are pissing their panties about it. Doesn't he have some Asian ancestry himself?

[XanBcoo]

How many communities are there of dark skinned blue-eyed people?

lol "Brown people don't have blue eyes. Better make these brown characters white."

I realized my mistake in calling them "Asian" since they are obviously meant to be Native American, and corrected myself. That doesn't change the issue. If a character is not obviously black/asian/indian, then he or she is neutral and white. That is the accepted reality that you are describing.

I won't respond to anything else you said because it's exactly the type of hand-wringing and nitpicking I was referring to. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to ignore the fact that the show is deeply rooted in Asian cultures with a primarily non-white cast because you want to excuse that a bunch of white kids were cast as brown characters because they were defined by Shymalan to be "ambiguous".

I won't derail any further. In the end, it's not a crime against humanity, but rather a disappointment. It's indicative of the state of Hollywood that Asian/brown actors could have been cast in a role that didn't paint them as caricatures, but were ignored in favor of marketability.

But at the same time I think it's wrong to try to force others not to see a movie because the characters aren't the race you think they should be (I'm not denying that the casting director is racist either lol).

Maybe they were dicks about it, but if I were your friend I'd try to convince you not to financially support this kind of whitewashing.

[Munsu]

lol "Brown people don't have blue eyes. Better make these brown characters white."

I realized my mistake in calling them "Asian" since they are obviously meant to be Native American, and corrected myself. That doesn't change the issue. If a character is not obviously black/asian/indian, then he or she is neutral and white. That is the accepted reality that you are describing.

I won't respond to anything else you said because it's exactly the type of hand-wringing and nitpicking I was referring to. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to ignore the fact that the show is deeply rooted in Asian cultures with a primarily non-white cast because you want to excuse that a bunch of white kids were cast as brown characters because they were defined by Shymalan to be "ambiguous".

I won't derail any further. In the end, it's not a crime against humanity, but rather a disappointment. It's indicative of the state of Hollywood that Asian/brown actors could have been cast in a role that didn't paint them as caricatures, but were ignored in favor of marketability.


Maybe they were dicks about it, but if I were your friend I'd try to convince you not to financially support this kind of whitewashing.

Xan, you're clearly reading my post wrong. What I was criticizing was first and foremost the inability to separate a fantasy world with the real world, and secondly the idea that "yellow people" as Animeniax likes to mention lost a ton of roles to white people. It's simply not true.

Nit-picking goes both ways. And I haven't said that I'm happy with the roles of Sokka and Katara as they were casted. I simply have a problem with the type of rationalization some of you are coming up with to not like the casting.

To me Katara and Sokka should be dark skinned with blue eyes. Wether they're Asians or not I could care less, and I don't think they're Asians. And Katara should be older.

And as mentioned before, Aang is perfectly fine as casted in my opinion.

[XanBcoo]

Yeah, like I said, I was mistaken in referring to Katara and Sokka as Asian and corrected myself. But that doesn't change the issue at all. Non-whites lost roles to white people and a rationale that says "Well, this is clearly a fantasy setting so everyone is without ethnicity" is absolutely racist. Not "racial slur" racist, but the product of a de-facto racist institution.

If you truly want to understand why this casting is particularly upsetting, start by visiting the blog that rockmanj linked to earlier: http://www.racebending.com/v3/featur...rimer/#casting

[Munsu]

Yeah, like I said, I was mistaken in referring to Katara and Sokka as Asian and corrected myself. But that doesn't change the issue at all. Non-whites lost roles to white people and a rationale that says "Well, this is clearly a fantasy setting so everyone is without ethnicity" is absolutely racist. Not "racial slur" racist, but the product of a de-facto racist institution.

If you truly want to understand why this casting is particularly upsetting, start by visiting the blog that rockmanj linked to earlier: http://www.racebending.com/v3/featur...rimer/#casting

Again, I was criticizing Animeniax's comments and who he specifically felt lost the roles to the whites.

"Well, this is clearly a fantasy setting so everyone is without ethnicity" <--- Not the case being argued. What I argue, if anything, is that people shouldn't limit themselves to a certain nation in a fantasy world needs to be depicted solely by a certain ethnicity in the real life. Particularly in a cartoon. The ethnicity is owned by the fantasy world, not by real world restrinctions.

What matters here, when a fantasy world is concerned, is physical resemblance and that's all. Wether the actors are actually Asian/White/Black, etc. I couldn't care less, and neither should anyone else.

The guy playing Aang looks the part. The other 3 don't. That's the bottom line. It has nothing to do with Asian people getting shafted, particularly "yellow" people by white people as some have mentioned. I point out SOME, not you, SOME.

The only "yellow" role one could argue that was shafted here got shafted by a brown fellow.

But I have to point out once again, that you don't seem to be reading what I'm saying clearly. I'm not defending the casting choices, except that I like the Aang one... I'm criticizing some of the rationalizations by some. Again, I don't like some of these casting, but it has nothing to do with Asians not getting those roles. It's simply that they don't resemble the part they're playing, that's the bottom line.

[Sapphire]

Again, I was criticizing Animeniax's comments and who he specifically felt lost the roles to the whites.

"Well, this is clearly a fantasy setting so everyone is without ethnicity" <--- Not the case being argued. What I argue, if anything, is that people shouldn't limit themselves to a certain nation in a fantasy world needs to be depicted solely by a certain ethnicity in the real life. Particularly in a cartoon. The ethnicity is owned by the fantasy world, not by real world restrinctions.

I never thought about it this way. Good point.

[XanBcoo]

But I have to point out once again, that you don't seem to be reading what I'm saying clearly. I'm not defending the casting choices, except that I like the Aang one... I'm criticizing some of the rationalizations by some. Again, I don't like some of these casting, but it has nothing to do with Asians not getting those roles. It's simply that they don't resemble the part they're playing, that's the bottom line.

No, I am reading and understand perfectly well what you're saying, nor am I taking your arguments personally. You're just missing the point and I'm explaining exactly why, in this case, the ethnicity of the actors and characters is a really big deal.

I never thought about it this way. Good point.

No it's not. How does any of that refute my summation of his argument that fantasy characters are without ethnicity?

I agreed with Munsu when the film in question was Dragonball, and I would agree if it were Naruto. But the characters in the cartoon show are intentionally Asian/Inuit. They are fake Asians living in fake Asia. Giving them blue eyes doesn't magically make them not brown or negate every other cultural characteristic that the creator gave them.