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[glockgal]

AVATAR
aang_aint_white has a new post Round Two: FIGHT! which has some great new information. Check it out!

I'm starting to get comments from people saying this now:
-- These crazy race-obsessed Avatar fans all hate these INNOCENT CHILD ACTORS. I pity the poor darlings. I'm so magnanimous! WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN....okay. No fan is gonna hate

Comments

[vejiicakes]

It's been maybe about ten hours since coming up from the comments on a forum thread on this topic (you know, the one that came up on the A-A-W LJ) and I'm still formulating this response to all the massive amounts of jackassery I'm seeing there and it's just.. too... m-

Okay, one, it's gotten really really lengthy. I'm all quoting books and shit and yellow/brown/blackface, I'm jumping over to Kal Penn and his "where's your turban?" interviews and rambling about Rita Moreno (a Puerto Rican actress in West Side Story put in darker brownface to LOOK MORE PUERTO RICAN so audiences wouldn't confuse her with the white actress they put in lighter brownface who was involved in the "interracial" romance in the movie) and linking Beau Sia and THERE IS SO MUCH OMG. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH.

Anyway. And TWO, there is SO MUCH INTERSECTING of so many DIFFERENT sorts of racist assumptions (asking that they cast Asian actors = shipping over actors from Asia and waiting for them to learn English badly? REALLY?) and white privilege (won't someone

[glockgal]

To not spam AAW, this --

I feel like your forum should host a contest for the Just Doesn't Get It award and the Condescending Caucasian Ignorance award.

GOD. YES. OH GOD. The smug, offended, passive aggressive attitude displayed on that forum is embarrassing and disgusting. My ears started to flame red when I got to like, page 2 when they actually started making fun of racial discrimination. Oh. WOW. Just

[ali_wildgoose]

The smug, offended, passive aggressive attitude displayed on that forum is embarrassing and disgusting.

At least it's a ready source of quotes if you need to prove to someone that people are ACTUALLY defending this shit?

*DESPERATELY LOOKS FOR UPSIDE*

[jedifreac]

People are like this because this kind of casting happens so often and no one says anything. It's so frequent it becomes normal, and then what's normal becomes okay. And it really disgusts me that the producers of "The Last Airbender" have taken something inspired by non-eurocentric cultures to continue the perpetuating the trend.

[vejiicakes]

Oh, I hadn't even checked out the forum yet! I seriously just was up until 7:30am (a mix of attempting to be succinct in typing a LOT of thinky thoughts for a presumably not-exactly-rapt audience on the forums, and being really tired, and charting a bus route for the trip into SF for the Asian Art Museum by the way not a single thing in THERE looked like junk I'd seen alll over "Avatar", nope, not a one, and getting distracted by "Heroes" fic) and finally edited/deleted/re-worded as much as I could, until my brain went like, "You have two hours to get some rest. Click post. Hope you don't have too much of that thing where your sleep-depraved mind replaces one word for another wrong one when you type. GOOD NIGHT

[glockgal]

*eagerly consumes your posts on the airbender forum* Holy jeebus, lady. I don't know how you are simultaneously so well-spoken and polite on the internets, I really, really don't. Your skill for debunking is PHENOMENAL. I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YOU AND YOUR WORDS.

I'm trying to assemble a set of quotes for AAW to use when writing letters to the media, and I hope it's okay that I'll be using great swathes of your stuff! Because you don't just have the historical know-how, you have the perspective.

Oh man, creating a visual comparison between Euro-fantasy and Avatar would be....oh so very pretty, but probably still not hammer the point home to people who are STILL saying "But Aang looks white!" ARGH. I JUST. ARGH. Still, I should try and entice a YouTuber to create one. ;D

When Bryan and Mike do everything to make this show and world and people Asian (-American-ish), short of slapping blinking signs saying "AZN" on them and plastering them with yellowface caricatures, and people still go "THEY'RE TOTALLY WHITE," I'm thinking there

[vejiicakes]

Somehow it seems to have degenerated into talk of Alcatraz (and you know, I've been to San Francisco plenty, and still I've never been! ..not really interested in water-isolated prisons though. Heh, I wonder if The Duke would protest that Harry Potter wasn't at its core a British work and should've been set in America, because Azkaban is totally the magical Alcatraz

[vejiicakes]

Huh, I just noticed that the discussion has moved to an entirely different thread in the General Discussions!

[glockgal]

Oh noes! *ROLLS EYES* You crazy people and your need to keep talking about race! I mean, it's so passe - racism is over.

*PUNCHES THINGS* I love the fact that no one learned ANYTHING and Mr The Duke is still the same idiot it was when he started pretending your valid arguments didn't exist.

'Oh no, this Vejiicakes person makes sense and calls me on my condescending arguments! Let's talk about Alkatraz, la la la! Lookit me, I'm such a fantastic Avatar fan, unlike these crazy race-obsessed people mucking everything up!'

[bossymarmalade]

itsbeenvery said something similar to the "more interested in discussing how much racism accusations hurt them, than in how racism can be prevented" in my journal here:

"When white people are racist, and someone says "hey, stop being racist", they will go to the ends of the earth to try and convince you they're weren't being racist at all, and that you're simply blowing things out of proportion. They will never say "oh, yeah, I'm really sorry and won't do it again".

They're more upset at being called racist than they are about having done something racist."

I love that girl. *g*

[ali_wildgoose]

Answer: WRITE MOAR ESSAYS <3

[vejiicakes]

BUT MY CURRENT ESSAY IS STILL SITTING IN NOTEPAD AND GETTING LONGER AND MORE JUMBLED BY THE DAY WITH NO END IN SIGHT D:

Also need a beta reader if/when it's finished...

[jedifreac]

Hold your horses.

How CAN we contact Beau Sia to ask him to speak about this? That would draw publicity.

[vejiicakes]

There's a way to contact Beau Sia? O_O

I dunno, I think if I managed it, I wouldn't even get around to the Avatar point because I'd be busy trying to trick him into being my boyfriend... ;_;

[jedifreac]

Could you try contacting him, though?

He's on myspace (which I don't have...) http://www.myspace.com/iambeausia

His email used to be beau@beausia.com but it doesn't seem to be running anymore.

He's also on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/431/5a8

I wouldn't write him specifically about Avatar; more about the marginalization of Asians in Asian-based stories, with The Last Airbender as the Last Straw?

[vejiicakes]

*recoils* HSSSSSSS MYSPACE D: On the other hand, I'd have to register with whatever the heck LinkedIn is.. MYSPACE IT IS.