So you probably know, Avatar: the Last Airbender is being made into a movie. Actually a trilogy of movies. It's based on the Nickelodeon cartoon, a very exciting show that has endearing characters and smart writing and complex themes. It's one of those rare kid's shows that doesn't play down to its audience, and it has won the loyal following of millions of fans all over the world, young and old alike.
In the show, the Water Tribe are obviously inspired by Inuits, the Fire and Earth nations appear to be East Asian (Korean, Chinese, and Japanese influences—including in the names, like Zhao, which is a Chinese surname). The Air Nomads are styled after Buddhist monks and nuns. The writing system is composed of Chinese characters. In the Earth Kingdom they wear hanboks. Everyone eats with chopsticks.
aang-aint-white.livejournal.co…Given all of this, you might mistakenly assume that the characters are in fact Asian and Inuit.
Wrong.
For the Hollywood live action version of Avatar, the characters are being played by white people:
community.livejournal.com/race…To which I have to say: W. T. F????
(Anything else I might add consists of too many unprintable expletives to be communicated, so I'll just go stabbity stab stab something instead)
Now, before you get all, "Well maybe they just picked the best actors" (Hah!), or go arguing that this is just a freak or isolated Hollywood incident, lo! Edumicate yourself:
Earthsea, 21, Anansi Boys, Dragon Ball Z.
You will, if you search these films, notice a pattern whereby the final products differ a little in "color" from the source material.**
And this does not just happen with movies. It happens in book publishing, too. Recently there was a book that caused quite a bit of a stir, about a young black girl who was depicted on the cover as a quite pale Caucasian. The book is called "Liar," and you can read about the controversy here:
www.racialicious.com/2009/07/2…All of this just sucks. I am certainly not going to see the film--I try to avoid "entertainment" that makes my blood boil. I can't stand sexism, I have to turn off movies where characters fake Asian accents (mostly older films that are really offensively racist), and I definitely can't watch white folks playing Asians. Someone asked me once who I'd have act as me in a movie about my own life, and I said, "Someone unknown; I don't know any Hapa actors." Why? Because we are never cast in movies. Not even when the main characters are supposed to be Asian.
**In fact Anansi Boys isn't a film. There were companies interested in rights to the story, but Gaiman turned them down when he learned they were going to insist on changing the story so it wasn't a fantasy story with black people in it.