The Last Airbender

[glockgal]

EVERYTHING'S EXCITING
Google reviews for The Last Airbender as see for yourself.
From my amazing co-activist Mike - The Last Airbender: Pre-ScreeningWhat's left? It feels like Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, and Dev Patel are hanging out in front of the camera, telling you about all the cool stuff they saw while watching the television series.
From my

Comments

[amanuensis1]

I feel weird--my first reaction to the reviews is, "Hooray, it sucks!" Then my second reaction is, "Wait, now people will just hate it and go refuse to see it because it sucks, not because of the issues raised by the fans." Clearly I cannot be made happy. I suppose that's the lesson, that this thing is too far gone for me to be made happy.

[quinconcinnity]

This. Exactly what's been bugging me..I'm glad it's going to bomb, but I worry Paramount will learn nothing and blame the source material.

[amanuensis1]

I am starting to think that perhaps the reason critics are saying it sucks so hard is that they already have a bit of a negative bias going in: "All right, Shyamalan said he cast the best actors rather than have a race-favored bias. Let's see." And then it's clear that no actor looks good, so, their negativity deepens and it's harder to win them at all. Maybe the voices of outrage did reach them after all?

I feel sorry for Shyamalan, I truly do. I've read what he said about trying to be race-inclusive with the casting and it honestly sounds like he meant well. It's a position in which I can see myself if no one pointed out the problems with that position.

[quinconcinnity]

I've read what he said about trying to be race-inclusive with the casting and it honestly sounds like he meant well.

I don't see any evidence of that at all. All the leads, including Zuko, were originally cast as white kids. He only brought in Dev Patel after the first actor backed out.

[amanuensis1]

Maybe I'll make a post on it--how I can see how someone would think making the cast largely diverse was a good thing, without stopping to consider he'd made ALL HIS LEADS white. Argh.

It isn't. Especially if you're using diversity as an excuse to exclude.

[amanuensis1]

And anyways, that's really the problem any time a supposedly diverse cast comes up. To those people, having white leads with a diverse supporting cast as background IS diversity. At the very most, a white lead with a secondary cast that's non-white is diverse. If there's diversity in the lead roles with not a single white lead, then you'll get cries of racism and Not Diverse

Re: It isn't. Especially if you're using diversity as an excuse to exclude.

[glockgal]

Thanks for commenting, anon.

Expanding on the point made in this anon comment that the cultures that were represented in A:TLA were already diverse given just how many different cultures and ethnicities Mike and Bryan used to worldbuild

Re: It isn't. Especially if you're using diversity as an excuse to exclude.

[amanuensis1]

So much of what you said is exactly what I've been trying to put into words, thank you! And your last paragraph summarizes it especially well.