A Reasoned Responce to the Last Airbender Casting

[erikonil]

Ever since the first announcement of the Avatar movie casting, the fan community has been split between people who either love it or don't care and people who found the whole thing disappointing. Those of us who didn't like the casting or thought the casting was inappropriate and disrespectful to the source were hit with comments about how it was

Comments

[anonymous]

Sounds more like an Inuit and Asian concern than an actual Native American/American Indian one. I don't see the Water Tribe having any aspect of Amerindian culture except perhaps the skin tents but then that wasn't exclusive to just one people. A lot of cultures back then used animal hides for housing and clothing. The Sami of Europe, for one, used reindeer. The Sun Warriors seem to be the only true American Indian inspired characters in the series and they wish to remain secretive so my guess is they won't get any screen time in the films, or even a passing mention. I'm also not keen on the close association people have been making between Inuit and Native American peoples because a lot of folks associate Inuit with Asian, which they might as well be seeing how they have relatives across the Strait and probably maintain contact (I'm not too sure about that, however) but Indians don't unless it's a recent Asian addition to the family. That association with Inuit makes it seem like American Indians = Asian which isn't true and most skins will tell you they're not Asian, myself included. Also, this presents another issue and that is Indian roles that have been played by Asian people in past films. It's not redfacing by whites but at the same time playing off Asian people as Natives is just as dishonest as any type of yellowfacing/blackfacing/you name it because the status of self-identity and self-representation in the media of an already marginalized group is made even more worse and because people believe Asians and Natives look similar it makes it even more insidious.