Avatar-gate 09: Who's to blame?
So, some avatar news. all bad & worse.
Bad: I guess letters don't work since the cast, as is, will start filming in march. boo.
worse: the extras are being called, and in a very hilariously outrageous way. it's not so much the flyer http://www.angryasianman.com/2009/01/protest-at-avatar-extras-casting-in.html
but rather, the quotes pulled from this article by casting director Deedee Rickets:
"We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire," she said. "If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen."
Another way to stand out is to demonstrate skills such as basket weaving, hair braiding, making clay pots, puppeteering, knitting, looming - "any artisan craft," Rickets said.
.....
Why were we blaming the director and producers when clearly it's the casting department who's responsible for a good deal of all of the fuck-ups! I mean, clearly she knows the difference between German & Belgium culture, so why not cast caucasians in asian-based roles? makes PERFECT sense.ople have been blamed the whole time! it's not M.Night or the producers fault about the cast. Hell, they might not even know about them! No, this is the correct person to blame. what........a development.
So, surfing around for info on if there will be protests, I found quite a few topics on the subject on the whole. first, there's this jackass:
http://nitemayr.livejournal.com/387578.html
He almost lost me here:
In this case a Malay person is at the reigns (for the most part) and has cast some box office candy in the roles. This outrage really smacks of Otaku-Fanism, as if sharing your toy with the unwashed masses will somehow dilute the experience. I’m not grasping how this is Racist at all, it might be a bit desperate or money grubbing, but Racist? Please.
yes, because wanting your series portrayed correctly is just fuckin' bizarre, right? But I read on, mostly to give him a piece of my mind at the bottom. and while I probably would have stopped there had I known he turned off comments for this entry (the pussy....), I was made aware of this:
I (for one) will be disappointed if they do recast the roles that have already been set; I’d hate to lose a job over my ethnicity, wouldn’t you? That kind of sums it up right there, in some way there are people out there so obsessed with their own ethnicity that it allows them to attempt to victimize others (en-masse) to somehow promote and protect that ethnicity. Imagine if there had already been a full cast of Asians in place and the reverse was now true? A bunch of European fans get together and form groups around demands for Caucasian actors in the roles of the title character and the blind girl (along with most of the people in the snow kingdom) then what?
It's obviously not the same, since A) there would be no basis for it and B) the complaint is, in a large part, coming from the people that the animated characters were resembled to play. Still, it would really suck to lose out on a part because of race. more than suck, it would really be racist, and what a catch 22 that is, right? It's wrong that caucasian actors got cast in the first place, yet also wrong to fire them for the fact that they don't resemble those characters. In this PC society, what's to happen when something like this arrives?
Still surfing, I found this:
http://io9.com/5111680/avatar-casting-makes-fans-see-white
which I'd wish I'd seen earlier, as I could've wholesale copy pasted it instead of explaining it in my first post, but then, that also leads to this: an interview with our would be Sokka -
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1602757/story.jhtml
Due in theaters in summer 2010, "Airbender" has already begun to face a bit of controversy over the casting of white actors like Rathbone, Ringer and McCartney to play Asian characters - a concern the actor was quick to dismiss. "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan," he said of the transformation he'll go through to look more like Sokka. "It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
Everyone seems to want to slant this as an asian influence, and I was on the fence as to how he meant this (I mean, at least he's trying to tan, unlike, say Yasmin in the bratz movie who didn't make any effort to more resemble the character. they barely painted on the mole for goodness sake!)
But then, the comments snapped me back:
segagenesis posted on 01.23.09 at 08:00pm
The actor is just as much to blame as the cast director and the producer and the film director. He can choose to turn down the role because he doesn't feel comfortable with it. Like RACE ISSUES? Assuming all a white guy needs to play an Asian is to tape up his eyes and get a tan, is like assuming all anybody needs to play a Black person is some brown paint. Racist. Jackass.
Ouch!
mazuzu posted on 01.23.09 at 12:59pm
yes the producers are racist and so is rathbone for thinking he just needs a tan to play an eskimo... why doesn't he grow out an afro to play a black person too
also ouch! Harsh & blunt, but untrue? I'm not exactly sure. the world is so Politicalyl Correct now, that who know what exactly can be done if anything. either way, someone gonna be un-happy and there will be a gigantic backlash. Who's the blame, if anyone for all this?
Ryan Frank posted on 01.22.09 at 11:59pm
Here’s my opinion: The actors have to get jobs to get paid and have money to live off of. If you guys want to be mad at anyone, you should be mad at the people who cast and pick the actors. It doesn’t make any sense to insult the actors because the actors are not the ones doing anything wrong. They just take the parts because they need money. So if you have issues take it up with the people who cast the actors. If anyone is being racist it’s them.
Oh, that's right- Deedee Rickets. She's to blame. and lets try to not forget that. i'm really unsure if I can support this movie at all, but as nitemayr notes in his post, the best protest is not giving them money, which while ideal in theory, I still don't know.
Kids will surely notice, but will they even care? That's the real question. It's being made mostly for the kids, but how will they even respond to it? Will they not want to see it now? or will this go unnoticed and will we have to just try and stop this from happening to another story franchise? Who knows really. But, at least we now know who's to blame.
Bad: I guess letters don't work since the cast, as is, will start filming in march. boo.
worse: the extras are being called, and in a very hilariously outrageous way. it's not so much the flyer http://www.angryasianman.com/2009/01/protest-at-avatar-extras-casting-in.html
but rather, the quotes pulled from this article by casting director Deedee Rickets:
"We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire," she said. "If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen."
Another way to stand out is to demonstrate skills such as basket weaving, hair braiding, making clay pots, puppeteering, knitting, looming - "any artisan craft," Rickets said.
.....
Why were we blaming the director and producers when clearly it's the casting department who's responsible for a good deal of all of the fuck-ups! I mean, clearly she knows the difference between German & Belgium culture, so why not cast caucasians in asian-based roles? makes PERFECT sense.ople have been blamed the whole time! it's not M.Night or the producers fault about the cast. Hell, they might not even know about them! No, this is the correct person to blame. what........a development.
So, surfing around for info on if there will be protests, I found quite a few topics on the subject on the whole. first, there's this jackass:
http://nitemayr.livejournal.com/387578.html
He almost lost me here:
In this case a Malay person is at the reigns (for the most part) and has cast some box office candy in the roles. This outrage really smacks of Otaku-Fanism, as if sharing your toy with the unwashed masses will somehow dilute the experience. I’m not grasping how this is Racist at all, it might be a bit desperate or money grubbing, but Racist? Please.
yes, because wanting your series portrayed correctly is just fuckin' bizarre, right? But I read on, mostly to give him a piece of my mind at the bottom. and while I probably would have stopped there had I known he turned off comments for this entry (the pussy....), I was made aware of this:
I (for one) will be disappointed if they do recast the roles that have already been set; I’d hate to lose a job over my ethnicity, wouldn’t you? That kind of sums it up right there, in some way there are people out there so obsessed with their own ethnicity that it allows them to attempt to victimize others (en-masse) to somehow promote and protect that ethnicity. Imagine if there had already been a full cast of Asians in place and the reverse was now true? A bunch of European fans get together and form groups around demands for Caucasian actors in the roles of the title character and the blind girl (along with most of the people in the snow kingdom) then what?
It's obviously not the same, since A) there would be no basis for it and B) the complaint is, in a large part, coming from the people that the animated characters were resembled to play. Still, it would really suck to lose out on a part because of race. more than suck, it would really be racist, and what a catch 22 that is, right? It's wrong that caucasian actors got cast in the first place, yet also wrong to fire them for the fact that they don't resemble those characters. In this PC society, what's to happen when something like this arrives?
Still surfing, I found this:
http://io9.com/5111680/avatar-casting-makes-fans-see-white
which I'd wish I'd seen earlier, as I could've wholesale copy pasted it instead of explaining it in my first post, but then, that also leads to this: an interview with our would be Sokka -
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1602757/story.jhtml
Due in theaters in summer 2010, "Airbender" has already begun to face a bit of controversy over the casting of white actors like Rathbone, Ringer and McCartney to play Asian characters - a concern the actor was quick to dismiss. "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan," he said of the transformation he'll go through to look more like Sokka. "It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
Everyone seems to want to slant this as an asian influence, and I was on the fence as to how he meant this (I mean, at least he's trying to tan, unlike, say Yasmin in the bratz movie who didn't make any effort to more resemble the character. they barely painted on the mole for goodness sake!)
But then, the comments snapped me back:
segagenesis posted on 01.23.09 at 08:00pm
The actor is just as much to blame as the cast director and the producer and the film director. He can choose to turn down the role because he doesn't feel comfortable with it. Like RACE ISSUES? Assuming all a white guy needs to play an Asian is to tape up his eyes and get a tan, is like assuming all anybody needs to play a Black person is some brown paint. Racist. Jackass.
Ouch!
mazuzu posted on 01.23.09 at 12:59pm
yes the producers are racist and so is rathbone for thinking he just needs a tan to play an eskimo... why doesn't he grow out an afro to play a black person too
also ouch! Harsh & blunt, but untrue? I'm not exactly sure. the world is so Politicalyl Correct now, that who know what exactly can be done if anything. either way, someone gonna be un-happy and there will be a gigantic backlash. Who's the blame, if anyone for all this?
Ryan Frank posted on 01.22.09 at 11:59pm
Here’s my opinion: The actors have to get jobs to get paid and have money to live off of. If you guys want to be mad at anyone, you should be mad at the people who cast and pick the actors. It doesn’t make any sense to insult the actors because the actors are not the ones doing anything wrong. They just take the parts because they need money. So if you have issues take it up with the people who cast the actors. If anyone is being racist it’s them.
Oh, that's right- Deedee Rickets. She's to blame. and lets try to not forget that. i'm really unsure if I can support this movie at all, but as nitemayr notes in his post, the best protest is not giving them money, which while ideal in theory, I still don't know.
Kids will surely notice, but will they even care? That's the real question. It's being made mostly for the kids, but how will they even respond to it? Will they not want to see it now? or will this go unnoticed and will we have to just try and stop this from happening to another story franchise? Who knows really. But, at least we now know who's to blame.