Hollywood just LOVES racial diversity...when it’s in the background
4.20.2009 - An update on the live-action Last Airbender movie and the controversy over its mostly white principal cast. MANAA, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, was among the many groups and individuals protesting these racist casting decisions, and sent a letter to the movie's producers. Here's the letter they received from Paramount last month in response:
Dear Mr. Aoki,
Thank you for your letter and interest in our film.
As devoted fans of the original series, our goal is to create a film that will not only live up to the expectations of the television series' fan base, but also expand it to a world-wide audience in ways that only a full-length motion picture can offer.
From the outset of the creative process, the Producers and the Director have envisioned embodying the Airbender universe with a large and ethnically diverse cast that represents many different heritages and cultures from all corners of the globe.
The Director's vision for this film is one of world, influenced and inspired by the Asian undertones of the series, and that is both diverse and inclusive in the make up of the four nations represented in the film's cinematic world.
Early casting includes an Indian actor, born in Mumbai and raised in the UK and the US; a Persian actor born in Tehran and raised in the UK, Switzerland and the US; a Maori actor born and raised in New Zealand; a Korean-American actor, born and raised in Chicago; an American actress of Italian, French and Mexican heritage; among several others of varied nationalities from around the world.
The four nations represented in the film reflect not one community, but the world's citizens. These societies will be cast from a diversity of all races and cultures. In particular, the Earth Kingdom will be cast with Asian, East Asian and Africans.
With this global perspective in mind, we believe we can best honor the true themes, ethos and fantastical nature of the Airbender stories and best capture the spirit and scale of the series to appeal to its worldwide fans.
Our challenge and commitment to our film audience is to harness all the elements that have made the series the incredible phenomenon it is.
We look forward to introducing you to THE LAST AIRBENDER next summer.
Sincerely,
The Producers
Rather ridiculous. It's pretty funny that their idea of a "diverse and inclusive" world is a bunch of pretty white folks as heroes surrounded by a bunch of supporting people of color. All this, of course, inspired by the "Asian undertones" of the original animated series. Here's the response from MANAA: MANAA's Response to Letter from Paramount on The Last Airbender.
Funny. Today on Twitter, The Last Airbender producer Frank Marshall posted that "The casting is complete and we did not discriminate against anyone. I am done talking about it." Really? I do recall that casting calls indicated a preference for Caucasian actors, but when it came to background extras, the casting director stated they were specifically looking for "authentic Asians." I eagerly anticipate how stupid this movie is going to look on the big screen.
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Tryxkittie: Okay, just a quick recap for those in ontd_p who aren’t sure what this is about: Avatar the Last Airbender - a very popular cartoon which features a world predominantly influenced by East Asian cultures, including Chinese, Korean, Tibetan, Japanese and Vietnamese as well as Inuit, Yupik and Pacific Islander cultures - is being made into a movie where white actors have been cast as the main characters. Tibetan monk Aang is being played by Texan Noah Ringer. Sokka and Katara, the darkest protagonists in the group are being played by the very white Jackson Rathborne and Nicola Peltz respectively. Jessie McCartney was slated to play the very Japanese-influenced Zuko.
Fan backlash caused Jessie to duck out of the project (though the official word is ‘scheduling difficulties’) and he was replaced by Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel. I suppose Paramount Pictures figured that fans would be happy with one token non-white actor and even though Zuko and the Fire Nation are supposed to be Eastern Asian influenced and Patel is Indian, it’s all in Asia, so what’s the difference, right? Right? *headdesk*
Fan backlash understandably continued. Paramount came up with the brilliant plan to cast non-white extras to comprise the four nations…well, at least the nations that are a) evil or b) delusional and corruptible. The Air Nomads (originally based off of Tibetan culture) and the Water Tribe (original based off of Inuit/Yupik cultures) are slated to be populated entirely by white people. It probably goes without saying that the fact that the Fire Nation (now slated to be comprised of dark-skinned South Asians) slaughtered the strictly pacifist Air Nomads and nearly did the same to the pious Water Tribe has unfortunate racial implications.
Yet Paramount seems to think that throwing in people from all colours of the rainbow to comprise either the bad guys or the extras somehow makes up for all this. Because diversity is good so long as white faces are on the movie poster. Except for the evil brown guys in the back.
In the words of nojojojo from AngryBlackWoman.com:
I cannot begin to explain how revolted I am that black people are being used to justify this shit. Fortunately, MANAA explains it for me, in their response:
After dealing with Hollywood studios for the past 17 years, we are more than familiar with the justifications used to cast white actors instead of actors of color. Other film productions have previously used the same pretexts, touting diversity through the casting of supporting roles-but only after first discriminating in casting the lead roles.
…
MANAA is a strong supporter of studios’ efforts to increase diversity, but it is absurd to use that as an excuse to make a project more white and to say the original concept wasn’t diverse enough when the cultures of the four Asian nations clearly were.
Emphasis mine again. Because that’s the thing: there weren’t any white people in the original series, either. And clearly the producers were not OK with this, despite the many, many all-white fantasy worlds that already exist. So all their “diversity” bullshit is really just a cover for their primary goal, which was to shoehorn white people into this world. But the creepiness of this goal would’ve been far too obvious if they’d only inserted white folks, so they tossed in some other races too.
There’s no conscientious commitment to diversity in this. This is diversity done as an afterthought, an excuse, something to point out and shout, “What in the world can that be?” as a distraction. Then while our backs are turned, boot PoC from primary, non-stereotypical roles into their traditional place at the back of the bus. I want black actors to get a paycheck as much as anyone, but I don’t like seeing my people used in such a transparent ploy to hurt other PoC. That shit doesn’t help any of us.
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Edit: Sorry for the quick plug, but if you're interested in doing something about this, please check out racebending.com