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Winter-Phantom — Not Asian -literally-
Published: 2011-06-21 14:01:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 6290; Favourites: 63; Downloads: 41
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This is what I hate about the thinking of some Avatar fans. How can it be racist;1. There is no "Asia".
2. Stupid hypocrites (and I do stress the word "stupid"), it's not racist to use other actors, it's racist to let only Asians play the roles and tell everyone else they can't be in it.
And they dare to call themselves True Avatar Fans. Hating an Avatar live action movie without giving it a chance . . . That sounds exactly like the thinking of a Naruto fan to me . . .
POINT IS
There's only four nationalities and "Asian" is not one of them.
Aang is not an Asian, he's an Air Nomad
Katara is not Asian, she's Water Tribe
Toph is not Asian, she's Earth Kingdom
Zuko is not Asian, he's Fire Nation
Look at Star Wars, everyone who's the same species as Luke Skywalker is "human", there is no "black homey" and "white boy".
When Mace tells Anakin to take a seat; Anakin is not thinking "Master Windu, why don't you go back to picking cotton?" And when Han doesn't like Lando hitting on Leia, Lando's not thinking "you're just jealous because my black dick's thicker" (that's what he says in the Star Wars Gangsta Rap to Yoda).
Point is, there's no real world history in a fictional universe.
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Comments: 205
That's because they were. The Fire Nation and most of the Earth Kingdom were based off China from various points in history, the Air Nomads were a mix of Chinese Shaolin Monks and Tibetan Buddhists, and the Northern Water Tribe had a dash of China thrown in with what a fantasy idea of what the Inuits might have if they'd made larger cities.
The Southern Water Tribe was pretty much straight Inuit, and other natives from the Arctic regions, according to Mike and Bryan themselves.
Technically, that doesn't make them Asian, but they still called specifically for White actors in the casting call.
Aside from that, though, DNA tests show that the Inuits were more closely related to East Asians than other Native Americans in the first place.
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they probably called for the white actors for the main characters because it's an american show, and the larger part of the population is white. and, once they start voicing the characters, and you don't see their faces, it doesn't really matter what their race is because they're being identified with the characters on the screen.
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...what?
Wait wait, they didn't call for any actual ethnicity for the voice cast of the show. I meant they did that for the movie!
My bad, I seem to have confused things.
No, for the show, they just auditioned people, though they did pick up from a good pool of Asian voice actors. They picked Dante Basco because they liked how he demoed for Zuko, not because he was Asian. They picked Mako because they thought he fit Iroh. They picked Jason Issacs (Zhao) because they "wanted somebody that sounded like Jason Issacs" and finally somebody said "What if we just got Jason Issacs?" Heck they got Sareena Williams to voice a Fire Nation guard just because they happened to run into her at the Nickelodeon gym and she said she was a fan of the show!
You have a point there, though. Voice acting is the one truly level playing field because your voice is a product of your language, not your race.
The movie, however, had the additional task of matching the character's appearance, since physically acting is a visual performance as much as it is an audible one, and *that* was when they slapped "Caucasian, or any other ethnicity" on every single casting call, even for Sokka and Katara, the Inuit-based Water Tribe kids who were noticeably and consistently darker skinned than the rest of the cast.
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Bostonfan seems to have blocked me from commenting to her for whatever reason so here's the response to her reply to Lurkingmoron that I won't ever be able to speficically send to her!
Do you really have nothing better to do than badmouth a director and call him an egomaniac? Is this what has become of your life? All of your time on the internet is looking for some poor person who doesn't dislike a damn movie? Given the fact that M Night has tremendous respect for the series and its creators, I don't think he would want to do something to piss them off. And if you can't get around simple changes that don't effect the story progression, then you really do have to look at yourself in the mirror and think. It just amazes me that even though you know that the extra half an hour of cut footage would probably help the film, you plug your fingers in your ears and blame it all on the director. And if they truly hated the film, how come they did interviews for the DVD, and don't say because they were contractually obligated. Alan Moore didn't do any interviews for any of the movies based on his comic books. They even said that the movie had the same spirit of the show.
They, uh, didn't do any interviews for the DVD. Actually, they kinda did, the bit that's on the DVD is mostly verbatim stuff from their "Avatar Spirits" documentary from the Season 1 collector's box set, so it's possible they just used footage from that, or were simply asked to repeat themselves. As for the contractual obligation, it's fully possible.
You can't compare it to Alan Moore because all of the movies made that were based on his comic books were made well after the comics were published and Moore had moved onto other projects. He would have been under no obligation to the movie. Mike and Bryan, however, were still continuing on with other Avatar-related work.
Also, Alan Moore really *really* hates Hollywood. He's kind of an eccentric in some ways, very different from Mike and Bryan, so you're using an extreme to compare to Mike and Bryan.
As for saying the movie had the same spirit as the show...
Well, remember, they didn't say that about the movie, they said that about the very first trailer, nearly a full year before.
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the show is obviously based on asian culture.
plus, the movie still sucked along with the acting (partially due to the poor writing of the script) - and the cast looked nothing like the actual characters.
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No, the movie was great with a great script. Asian based culture doesn't make Asian people. The actors fit the roles perfectly.
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Well, you are entitled to your own opinion - no matter how twisted it may be.
I'm actually afraid we might not even be talking about the same movie if that is your honest opinion. I'm hoping, for your sake, that you are being sarcastic.
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"I hope for your sake?" \:
How about this quote;
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
We are talking about the same movie. Other deviantartist also pointing out that it's a bit racist that these things are only to Asian people as it's assuming. It's like if they made a gang and drug movie and someone said "they white washed the cast, where's all the black people?"
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That faith quote was from Darth Vader you dumb bitch. It had nothing to do with church.
That "dumb bitch" line is for acting like a dumb bitch;
1. For swearing and getting rude
2. Making a threat ("for your sake") when you has no right or control over my freedom of speech.
People have rights as long as they don't interfere with others rights, and bashing is a form of harassment over my freedom of speech.
I'm not the one subbing my views down others. This picture is posted for people who like the movie.
What I am subbing down people's throats is that they should show respect for other people's pictures as this is not a free-speech-public-discussion-board, this is my Deviantart picture,
and subbing down their throats that they can't just bash in my comment box and expect that I'm not going to say something.
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I think I have tracked down a severe, fundamental barrier between the two of us ever agreeing.
You've said time and again that you thought the script was great, true to the characters, and the actors looked the part, and turned in a good performance.
At the same time, though, that really, from a totally objective standpoint, isn't the case, in nearly every regard. Katara was mostly stripped of her importance, Sokka (now renamed to Soak-Uh) was "grounded" according to M. Night himself. They specifically went out of their way to make changes, many of them fundamental (and often unnecessary if you ask me.)
As for the actors performance or how you thought the script was good, that's your opinion, but do recall that this movie swept the Razzie awards (think of like an Oscar for badness) thanks to it's acting *and* it's writing.
Other deviantartist also pointing out that it's a bit racist that these things are only to Asian people as it's assuming. It's like if they made a gang and drug movie and someone said "they white washed the cast, where's all the black people?"
That isn't a proper comparison, and frankly, it's kinda racist to say that (not calling you a racist, before we get into an argument about how you aren't, I'm saying what was said was racist.) Hollywood has a problem with making stereotypical roles the only ones readily available to minorites, they're seen as a "safe" place to go with them.
As for the fact that it's a martial arts series...well, like it or not, that's a part of the culture and something that's very important to Chinese cinema. You can say it's still stereotypical, but something Avatar (had it been done faithful to the show) would have done (besides launching the careers of several Inuit and Asian American actors) was make a story that was full of characters beyond the stereotypes of cheap, chop-socky kung fu movies.
As for the sequel, I can go on and on about how it's sequel is almost certainly gone to the night, never to return, and I can base that off sales figures and numbers, not opinions...but that's a debate for another time, I won't go into it unless you want me to.
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I never had any problems with the casting but... Why does a 6-10 years old kid playing a 17 years old? (Haru.) 
So the movie has good and bad points.
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Well personally I just think they scewed the personallities and left a lot of humor out
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He's not a psycho, he's a great director with great vision. I see you have terrible vision because you think a guy picking his noise makes a good default pic.
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The director isn't the only one to blame. Both Bryan and Mike said that they liked his final draft of the script, and were on set for all of the production, if there was something they didn't like, I think they would've told M Night. However Paramount wanted to be cheap about the 3D conversion so M Night had to cut a Half hour of footage. It's extremely heartbreaking and this kind of stuff keeps happening. Though i do hope that he will grow into this new genre with time.
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The director isn't the only one to blame. Both Bryan and Mike said that they liked his final draft of the script, and were on set for all of the production, if there was something they didn't like, I think they would've told M Night.
Sorry, that's a tremendous lie. Mike and Bryan have never specifically said they approved of the script and there's only one visit to the set that was ever made public. They were executive producers, but that's either business and legal concerns, or a vanity credit with no actual input. Considering the third executive producer was Kathleen Kennedy, who was also the wife of the producer Frank Marshall and co-owner of one of the three production studios behind the movie (Paramount is only the owner of the franchise and distributor, it didn't have direct creative control) I'd say Mike and Bryan got stuck with the "participation trophy" so to speak.
However Paramount wanted to be cheap about the 3D conversion so M Night had to cut a Half hour of footage.
Also not true. Yes, the 3D conversion was terrible, but it more than made up for itself in sales. 53% of the movie's opening weekend was in 3D tickets, meaning half of it's opening night viewers essentially paid the price of two tickets. M. Night cut the scenes for his own reasons, but you know what? It wasn't all that different a movie. Most of the removed content is part of the deleted scenes, and the Kyoshi Warrior scenes are fairly inconsequential in the original cut of the movie. The scene after freeing the Earthbenders from their hopeless prison of a ROCK QUARRY and they're showering him with yellow flowers? That was originally his walk into Kyoshi Island. Everyone was all vying to just touch him, like he was a holy messiah figure, instead of what the Avatar actually was in the show, and he tells them he's Kyoshi's reincarnation. Then comes the "Kyoshi liked games" thing. Later on the actual Kyoshi Warriors show up, after sneaking around and following Ong and his followers, ask Sohkka if he was the one making the posters, they escort them somewhere and then they leave.
We didn't lose all this great character developing footage, stuff that got cut that we got to see was a few minutes long at most, and only made a few scenes happen in a different order.
The Kyoshi Warrior and Kyoshi Island scenes were pretty much inconsequential.
The movie was not radically different, trust me.
Oh, and just read Lurkingmoron's post. He has it right, Mike and Bryan refused to sign movie merchandise and refuse to talk about the movie, since criticizing it would violate their contract.
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Dude it is 3D coversion that still is killing alot of movies these days.
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Well, that depends on your definition of "killing" and your definition of "these days."
If by "these days" you mean "since James Cameron's Avatar" and by "killing" you mean "stifling creativity and fostering the idea that money is all that matters" then yes, you're right.
If by "these days" you mean "right now" and by "killing" you mean "people are getting tired of it and some movie theaters want to scrap the whole deal" then yes, you're right.
If by "these days" you mean "last year when 3D conversions were still new and popular" and by "killing" you mean "it had a negative impact on The Last Airbender's earnings" then no, you're wrong. As I said, most of the money of it's opening weekend was thanks to 3d sales. Without it, Airbender would not have done nearly as well, and it didn't even do that well to begin with, not for a Summer blockbuster trying for a sequel.
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I don't think the point is they can't defend M. Night and blame the studio because Viacom onws Nick network and Paramount. If they step out of line they could lose their new baby series Korra. Welcome to Corporate Hollywood.
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Ah, but I forgot to mention, nothing was stopping them from *complimenting* or *supporting* the movie, yet the only positive thing they've ever said was a comment about the very first trailer, then they went silent (aside from denying having anything to do with the casting, which they also did.)
Pretty sure that means they had nothing good to say.
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But what could they do anyway the studio is the one who is calling the shoots and M. Night just got his hands cuff when they decided to blow the movie into 3D for more money.
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...I seriously don't think M. Night had a real problem with the 3D conversion, he never said so in any interviews, but even if he did...what would that have done to the actual budget? It was only $5-$10 million dollars, and in a movie budget that cost a grand total of $150 million at the end that is *not* a lot, especially for what was supposed to be a Hollywood Summer Blockbuster.
As is, the filming was finished, and the Kyoshi Warrior scenes didn't actually need a lot of post-production effects, so I still say M. Night cut those bits for his own reasons and as I've told other people it would *not* have made a radically different movie.
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The thing is he is covering the studio's mistakes and if he speaks about them he could loose his contract with the studio into doing the trilogy.
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Leaving aside the idea of M. Night trying to cover something, *what* mistakes? I've said it before, the 3D conversion for Airbender helped net it a huge chunk of extra change. By all accounts, it only helped it, even if it was a crummy moneymaking move (not to mention how pointless it was to go see it in 3D.)
M. Night is very outspoken about being stifled creatively by Big Hollywood, he has been ever since he left Disney. I may be basing my ideas off circumstantial evidence, but there is absolutely nothing that I've seen that says he was trying to cover up for somebody else, or that he was ever being snuffed by the studio somehow.
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Well you never know. Hollywood is very secretive but that is another thing.
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That's...not really a counterpoint or a defense, but whatever, the conversation has pretty much ended.
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That's exactly it, I think. If they start badmouthing the movie, they run that risk.
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Do you really have nothing better to do than badmouth a director and call him an egomaniac? Is this what has become of your life? All of your time on the internet is looking for some poor person who doesn't dislike a damn movie? Given the fact that M Night has tremendous respect for the series and its creators, I don't think he would want to do something to piss them off. And if you can't get around simple changes that don't effect the story progression, then you really do have to look at yourself in the mirror and think. It just amazes me that even though you know that the extra half an hour of cut footage would probably help the film, you plug your fingers in your ears and blame it all on the director. And if they truly hated the film, how come they did interviews for the DVD, and don't say because they were contractually obligated. Alan Moore didn't do any interviews for any of the movies based on his comic books. They even said that the movie had the same spirit of the show.
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Get a life, do you not have anything better to do but be a jerk to everyone?
"Lurkingmoron" your user name says a lot about you . . .
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"Lord of the Rings doesn't take place on Earth and is based on anglo-saxon lore and fantasy, the cast is entirely white. Nobody had a problem with that since it fit the universe."
Actually, according to Tolkien in his letters, LoTR DOES take place on our Earth, but in a very distant past. Middle-Earth is suppose to be located around where Europe is today. There are in fact other continents in the LoTR, but they are just not mentioned and explored a lot compared to the continent of Middle-Earth.
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I'm not here to argue with you about that. I'm just clarifying that so-called statement of yours regarding what you said about LoTR. After all, if any hardcore Tolkien fan/purist sees that, they are not gonna be happy with what you said there.
And since you mentioned that the Avatar world had the "same celestial bodies as ours and had a 365 day year with four seasons". Well, so does Middle-Earth, if you have read the books, of course minus the 12 Chinese Zodiacs. But who knows, perhaps in some other continent in the LoTR world that correlates to our Asia, that could exist.
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You know, I could give you an answer on why we shouldn't compare Avatar to LoTR, but it's gonna end up very long-winded and I doubt you are gonna agree with me on it.
Oh and by the way, LoTR isn't just influenced from Anglo-Saxon culture, it even has Finnish, Norse, Welsh and Greek influences as well. And if you think that LoTR only has white people, well it's not all true. The Southrons and the Haradrim from the South of Gondor are said to have darker skin. And not just that, apparently some of the Hobbits are said to be "swarthy" in appearance as well, including our dear Samwise Gamgee. I wonder if Peter Jackson might have missed that one. Hmmm...
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Weren't the Southrons and Haradrim all bad guys? I'm certain they had sided with Sauron, and that none of the heroes were from that region. That's not exactly a glimmering example of racial progressivism atop a hill.
At the same time, Lord of the Rings was a sort of imaginary alternate history, different in actual design from Avatar's fully fantasy Pan-Asian world, but from the perspective of tropes and specific cultural backdrop, the two are fairly similar.
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Before you accuse Tolkien of racism, I suggest you read this from the other perspective: [link] Scroll down to "Was Tolkien racist? Were his works?", that section pretty much sums up my reply to what you said about LoTR "not exactly a glimmering example of racial progressivism atop a hill."
Also, bear in mind that Tolkien wrote LoTR many decades ago, when many of the morals and values of that time do not fall under what we call "political correctness" of our time. He was raised in a very English and mostly white environment. I doubt he had the concept of a multiracial world in mind when he wrote LoTR, and I don't think his books are meant to promote that and it is likely that he never thought about it. Despite that, you'll be surprised that his views (based on his letters) make him one of the least racist people of his time; he admires the Jews and opposed Nazism, and even expressed disgust over the Apartheid system in South Africa, his country of birth. In fact, he does not like it when others described Middle-Earth as "Nordic", due to that term's association with racialism and racist theories.
I see your point regarding the backdrops of the Avatar world and LoTR, but that doesn't mean that I agree with you on that. If you want my opinion, well to me I don't care about race. I don't care if the race of the actor doesn't fit the supposed or assumed "race" of the character, especially if we are dealing with fictional fantasy characters here from another world that isn't ours. I do not consider race and culture to be the same thing. Race is something you are born with, whereas culture is a learned characteristic, just like languages. What matters is that the actor looks like the description of the character, regardless of race. For example, if the character has brown skin, just hire any good brown-skinned actor for the part. It doesn't matter if the actor's race is not the same as the character's one, just as long as they are both brown-skinned or look the part and has the acting chops. Which is why I wasn't happy with the cast of TLA at first, not because of race, but because most of the actors do not look like the characters at all. That does not stop me from giving the movie a chance, I still went and watch it, to mostly disappointing results. But that's not because race has anything to do with it, it's more due to Paramount being so money-minded and M Night's ego.
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Oh, trust me, I know full well that Tolkein was a product of his times, that isn't what my comment was about.
As for the second bit...well, this may be where we differ fundamentally. Race matters to me because of just how much I've seen these roles get whitewashed. Do you realize that all all the movies Paramount made from 2000-2010, 85% had white, male, leads? That isn't just getting into how few roles there are out there for women and/or minorities, this is also getting into roles that get wiped out in favor of a white or male actor when race is either not specified. I can list examples upon examples of this, and link you a study that was made on exactly that topic, if you'd like. Trust me. I can also track down studies that say that not teaching kids about race, or worse, only telling them nebulous "we are all equal" lessons while not explaining any of the significance, is the first step in giving kids innate racist viewpoints.
If you don't care about race, if apathy is your best defense, everyone loses.
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"Oh, trust me, I know full well that Tolkein was a product of his times, that isn't what my comment was about."
I was merely replying to what you said in your previous post about LoTR "not exactly a glimmering example of racial progressivism atop a hill." And now that you've mentioned that you yourself know that Tolkien was a product of his time, what exactly is your point then? Is LoTR not an example of racial progress because of Tolkien and the way he was brought up, or was it due to say for example, the casting of the movies?
"Do you realize that all all the movies Paramount made from 2000-2010, 85% had white, male, leads?"
I have not seen ALL of Paramount's movies from the 2000-2010, so I can't really judge whether or not that is the case myself. However, out of the Hollywood movies I have seen during that time from any studio (including Paramount), I have seen plenty with females and non-whites in positive leading roles. As a woman and a non-white person myself, this is enough to convince me that Hollywood is at least taking efforts in portraying diversity compared to other major film industries from East Asia and Bollywood (which are just as big as Hollywood, mind you).
Now if we are talking about The Last Airbender and whether or not it is white-washed (particularly the main characters), let me asked you this: Who exactly are the protagonists of this movie? If you have seen the movie, you should be able to tell that it's obviously not Katara and Sokka, who are portrayed more of like sidekicks here (in fact even more so than their TV counterparts) and are played by white actors. In fact it is Aang and Zuko. The thing is, Noah Ringer has been confirmed to be of Native American descent. Just because his ethnicity was not stated until recently, does not mean that he should be defaulted to the "white" group. I have come across many people stating that he doesn't look typically white to them and may have some or a little bit of Asian in him. I have to admit that even I myself did not see him as 100% white either; to me he looks mixed with some East Asian features and this was way before his ethnicity was confirmed. Plus Zuko is played Dev Patel who is British Indian.
So really, how can you (and Racebending) just quickly jump to the conclusion that the main characters were white-washed without even checking these facts? If this is not enough to convince Racebending, I really don't know what to say anymore. But then I have seen Racebending twisting facts and taking words out of contexts many times in order to "prove" their propaganda. Sigh!
"Trust me. I can also track down studies that say that not teaching kids about race, or worse, only telling them nebulous "we are all equal" lessons while not explaining any of the significance, is the first step in giving kids innate racist viewpoints."
Show me then! And if you want, I can show you studies on why "race" does not exist in a scientific and biological sense, and why it has its flaws when it comes to categorising people and that it should no longer matter anymore especially in this time and era.
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I was merely replying to what you said in your previous post about LoTR "not exactly a glimmering example of racial progressivism atop a hill." And now that you've mentioned that you yourself know that Tolkien was a product of his time, what exactly is your point then? Is LoTR not an example of racial progress because of Tolkien and the way he was brought up, or was it due to say for example, the casting of the movies?
Neither of those are mutually exclusive, it’s not an example of racial progress under either condition, casting or from Tolkien. I was merely avoiding directly accusing Tolkien of racism, since that would have started a separate, and irrelevant, debate. Lord of the Rings might well be too entrenched in its cultural roots to justify changes in the name of diversity.
I have not seen ALL of Paramount's movies from the 2000-2010, so I can't really judge whether or not that is the case myself. However, out of the Hollywood movies I have seen during that time from any studio (including Paramount), I have seen plenty with females and non-whites in positive leading roles.
That’s true, so I didn’t go with just what I had seen during that time, I went with numbers. Now, I made a slight mistake. Paramount’s movies had 83% white, male lead actors since 2010. From 2000-2009, that number was actually 64% white, male leads. Following that were white actresses in 22%, with actors of color taking 13%, and actresses of color taking a measly 1%. Sure, the numbers are slightly better, but they’re still terrible (considering white men take up only about 35-40% of the population of America.) That isn’t getting into the disparity against women under 40 in general. (Yeah, Hollywood tends to shrug away older women; that’s a different, but related, issue.)
So yeah, we’ve seen more, but there’s still almost nothing in comparison, especially among non-white women.
As a woman and a non-white person myself, this is enough to convince me that Hollywood is at least taking efforts in portraying diversity compared to other major film industries from East Asia and Bollywood (which are just as big as Hollywood, mind you).
And as a Mexican-American man, it is not enough for me once I actually dug out the numbers. Especially since any gains among minorities tend to just be fluctuations. According to the Screen Actors Guild, from 2007-2008, roles for minorities overall went down for everybody except for Asians, and I’m willing to bet it changed again the next year.
While East Asia and India have their own set of racial problems that also need addressing (especially China, God help you if you aren’t part of the 90% Han Chinese majority ethnic group,) those are largely irrelevant to The Last Airbender. We have little context for Bollywood and East Asia’s movie industry, and little context for the ethno-racial makeup and politics. I prefer to argue as best I can here at home, in a country that touts and prides itself on its racial progression. We have far enough to go without having to bring in places that average Americans can’t really understand, much less have any meaningful impact, that will have to come from them. We can’t simply ignore one problem because there’s a worse one somewhere else.
Now if we are talking about The Last Airbender and whether or not it is white-washed (particularly the main characters), let me asked you this: Who exactly are the protagonists of this movie?
Aang (sorry, “Ong”) Katara, and Sokka (sorry, Soh-Kuh.”)
If you have seen the movie, you should be able to tell that it's obviously not Katara and Sokka, who are portrayed more of like sidekicks here (in fact even more so than their TV counterparts) and are played by white actors.
Oh…I wasn’t aware that the allies of the main protagonist didn’t also count as protagonists. Just a quick bit, considering that there was a fairly equal focus on Sokka and Katara’s character development in the show, I wouldn’t count them as side-kicks in the original show. The movie had them more as…followers. I hesitate to call them friends, since we never see them really being friends.
In fact it is Aang and Zuko.
No, Zuko is the primary Antagonist. He’s still trying to capture Aang for his father at this point. He’s an enemy to our hero, working against our heroes’ goal, and working towards the goals of other antagonists.
Thus: Antagonist
Zuko is the deuteragonist, the second most important character in the story, sure…but Zuko doesn’t fully join the Gaang until 5/6ths of the show is over. You can’t argue with the benefit of hindsight over the entire three seasons to say that this character was a protagonist all along, just as you can’t say Darth Vader was a good guy through all of Star Wars simply because he saved Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi.
The thing is, Noah Ringer has been confirmed to be of Native American descent.
Ringer self-identifies as Native American, and the only person whom he has said this to is Entertainment Weekly reporter Karen Valby. We have no other context as to the details of his heritage. I’ll get into that in a moment.
Just because his ethnicity was not stated until recently, does not mean that he should be defaulted to the "white" group.
Didn’t say he should be. I’ll let you know, however, that Paramount was the one who allowed everyone to assume he was White. I’ll copy-paste a little from Racebending.com, real fast, I don’t feel like typing the exact same thing:
Ringer was presented as a white person who Shyamalan “felt” was “mixed race with an Asian quality to him.” This was never disputed or debated by the production. In the conversations Asian American organizations and Racebending.com had with Paramount, including with the President of Paramount Pictures, both parties operated on the premise that Ringer was white. But in lieu of ambiguous ethnicity, white should not be the default. While we don’t presume to doubt Ringer, we wonder why his heritage was hidden and obscured by Paramount Pictures, while other actors’ backgrounds were flaunted by Shyamalan in his TLA-defensive interviews. In short: why were we, the movie-going public, allowed to assume that Ringer was (the default) white?
I have come across many people stating that he doesn't look typically white to them and may have some or a little bit of Asian in him. I have to admit that even I myself did not see him as 100% white either; to me he looks mixed with some East Asian features and this was way before his ethnicity was confirmed.
Yes, M. Night thought so, too, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. Keeanu Reeves isn’t 100% White, but Hollywood uses him left and right to play White characters and Asian characters when it’s convenient (to use the upcoming 47 Ronin movie as an example.) Russel Wong is half-dutch, half-Chinese. So is Kristen Kreuk, but Wong has never gotten the chance to play non-Asian characters when Kreuk has played Lana Lang in Smallville, and Chun-Li in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Hollywood treats you better if you’re a racially ambiguous minority. There are other celebrities I can mention where this is true.
Ringer has already ridden the coattails of his racial ambiguity to another high-profile role in Cowboys and Aliens. He gets to hang out with James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) thanks to this movie. Peltz and Rathbone also have high-profile roles lined up in the future. If this movie had been done right, this could have launched the careers of unknown Asian and Inuit or other First Nations actors/actresses in an industry where they’re in very short supply.
…Or not… Dev Patel, the most decorated and talented actor of all four of our main characters has complained that he’s still getting nothing but stereotypical roles, and only has a reprisal of his character from the drama Skins to look forward to.
Plus Zuko is played Dev Patel who is British Indian.
Yes, Dev Patel. The second choice. The backup after Jessie McCartney jumped ship of his own accord. How nice of them to fall back on Dev Patel after they couldn’t use the guy they originally wanted!
So really, how can you (and Racebending) just quickly jump to the conclusion that the main characters were white-washed without even checking these facts? Like this! Here’s another quote from Racebending: If this is not enough to convince Racebending, I really don't know what to say anymore. But then I have seen Racebending twisting facts and taking words out of contexts many times in order to "prove" their propaganda. Sigh!
Now you’re just being biased! (Haha…joke…that was a joke…never mind.)
I’ll just copy-paste-quote Racebending again, since they’re oh-so-great at being relevant in this discussion. Continuing from the previous quote!
What this says to me is that a) Ringer is racially ‘ambiguous’ enough to play Aang (or as Shyamalan says, has “an Asian quality”–whatever that means–which apparently should be good enough); and, b) therefore race in A:TLA is unimportant/irrelevant, and anyone can play anyone.
Our efforts were never just about hiring minorities. Our concern goes beyond just “presentness” of minorities. There are many films that have actors of colour who play the roles of sidekick or bad guy or Extraneous Person #253. Racebending.com still stands by our opinion that Aang was Asian. Minorities are not interchangeable, and further tokenism in film is not our goal. The argument that there was a minority in the film playing one of the any whitewashed minority role…so we should shut up and sit down–why should we when so many characters were still whitewashed? When the film perpetrated so many racial stereotypes–depicting black and Inuit communities as helpless victims, depicting Asians as villains, idiots, traitors and massage ladies?
This is very similar to our stance when Prince Zuko was recast as Dev Patel. While this muddied the waters (people asking us “Are you happy now?” and “You can’t say it’s racist anymore!” as if tokenism should be enough to put us back in our place), it didn’t change the situation. The casting of Dev Patel did not change the fact that underrepresented groups lost a rare opportunity in the roles of Aang, Sokka, and Katara. It just made the discrimination reflected in The Last Airbender a more complex a version of discrimination that isn’t easy for many people to comprehend.
Racism is not always overt or deliberate. Even with the best of intentions, a film can still have a discriminatory impact and send racist messages. The film is not any less racist because of Noah’s casting, because:
A) People of and communities of color aren’t interchangeable.
B) The cultures showcased in the original Avatar: The Last Airbender saw their roles greatly diminished in the film.
C) Katara and Sokka are still clearly brown in the animated series and clearly white in the movie.
D) The Last Airbender depicts situations of colorism, where heroes with light skin condescend to people with dark skin, and fight brown bad guys.
Our primary concern is fair and accurate portrayals of people of color and Noah Ringer identifying as American Indian does not change our concerns about The Last Airbender.
Minorities are not and should not be monolithically interchangable. The presence of a minority lead does not change the stereotypes reinforced by The Last Airbender.
We are happy that he is proud of his heritage and hope he will play American Indian characters in the future – seriously how awesome would it be to see a Native American child character hero?!!? – but the issue is that thousands of children across America still saw Asian and Inuit characters whitewashed and/or presented as white.
Show me then!
Sure!
Screen Actor’s Guild casting data report from 2009, showing the casting from 2007-2008.
[link]
UCLA Professor of Law, Russell K. Robinson’s 2006 study on casting call breakdowns in Hollywood:
Short version: [link]
Full Paper: [link]
“How to Raise Racist Kids” by Gordon Liu, an article based on the findings of Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman when they started researching the issue of kids and race for their book NurtureShock:
[link]
That’s all the stuff that I was referencing and reading.
And if you want, I can show you studies on why "race" does not exist in a scientific and biological sense, and why it has its flaws when it comes to categorising people and that it should no longer matter anymore especially in this time and era.
And considering the content of my articles and this discussion, I think that should who why the idea of race not existing is flawed in itself because it, in fact, does not “no longer matter anymore especially in this time and era.”
I hope I’m not being condescending to you. That was my last intention, I try to pepper in my humor and sarcasm to lighten up my tone, and I hope you haven’t found me to be disdainful…but whether or not race exists, society treats it as real, and until that changes, so should we. It’s the only way we can have any context when we fight against it.
It isn’t an issue where ignoring it or displaying apathy works as a solution, these conversations need to happen, these issues need to be talked about…
…Because they’re still here, quieter perhaps, but no less prevalent, no weaker than they have been in the last 30 years.
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Whoops, format issue. This was supposed to be my last word:
And considering the content of my articles and this discussion, I think that should who why the idea of race not existing is flawed in itself because it, in fact, does not “no longer matter anymore especially in this time and era.”
I hope I’m not being condescending to you. That was my last intention, I try to pepper in my humor and sarcasm to lighten up my tone, and I hope you haven’t found me to be disdainful…but whether or not race exists, society treats it as real, and until that changes, so should we. It’s the only way we can have any context when we fight against it.
It isn’t an issue where ignoring it or displaying apathy works as a solution, these conversations need to happen, these issues need to be talked about…
…Because they’re still here, quieter perhaps, but no less prevalent, no weaker than they have been in the last 30 years.
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LOTR movies all of the characters were white and noboby complaint.
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No one complained because LOTRs was set in a fantasy European environment. Tolkien was writing a fantastical version of his world and culture.
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Well what I hate is the names, who the hell is awng?
That is what I think pissed ppl off the most
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No they weren't technically a specific race. But the creator compared them to races irl.
-Water Tribe is comparable to Indians.
-Earth Kingdom is comparable to the Chinese
-Fire Nation is comparable to Japan.
-And Air Nomads are any Buddhists in general
But in the movie, everyone except Earth Kingdom was Indian. It was annoying. Other than that, I liked the movie.
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