Cinnematical: Do You Care About the 'Last Airbender' Casting Controversy?

[jedifreac]

Today, the Moviefone- Cinnematical blog asks its readers:Do You Care About the 'Last Airbender' Casting Controversy?

"I don't have a very good sense of how people in the broader cinephile community (i.e. folks who are neither activists nor die-hard Airbender fans clamoring for a faithful adaptation) feel about this issue. Does Paramount's approach

Comments

[generic_geek29]

Apparently our website is irritating. The writer came across as the worst sort in my mind he sees that they're taking Asian characters and painting them white, he acknowledges that its wrong.. and doesn't care.

[nthdraft]

lol "the show only had cultural markers, not racial ones" whut?

oh lets see in that corner, some guy on a movie blog. In this corner, Roger Ebert and Ursula LeGuin and half the original production staff of the animated series.

Yeah, I'm good with those odds.

[dkwrkm]

SOKKA AND KATARA ARE BROWN, why is this so hard to understand?!

[mrcab]

Bcz 'brown' is just dark-white. LOL Seriously though, people do argue that the two siblings are white, as crazy as it sounds.

[neurotic_rat]

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EV-Seriously!? That's almost like... a literal example of 'color blindness' except I'm headdesking from the sheer stupidity that people would go to say that. -_-;

There goes my faith in humanity...

[mrcab]

They do not have any overt, non-white/Caucasian features as PoC depicted in most western cartoons so often do: so they are obviously white, right? :-p

Sheesh, I don't know how many times I've had to explain why  "anime characters don't look asian to you bcz of how you view depictions of cartoon characters... blah blah blah..."  to others, only to get a deadpan, "But they don't look asian."

A bit sad how many peoplez watched A:TLA thinking the characters were not east-Asian/Inuit but white or nondescript humans.

[dkwrkm]

Yeah, people keep arguing that they're white because they have blue eyes and speak great English. Their dark skin is just a tan.

fffff...

[othellia]

I got into an argument related to this with a person on youtube. I linked him/her to the Face of the Other and tried to say that anime is about not having to need racial markers rather than people thinking they just don't exist and is therefore "ethnically ambiguous." Also, I tried to say that even if there were racial markers, it wouldn't have mattered seeing as how the Water Tribes are clearly dark-skinned and were made Caucasian.

His/her response? Katara and Sokka are ambiguously brown. D:

[jedifreac]

Oh man, they're quoting M. Night's (lack of) understanding of anime now?

[dkwrkm]

*headdesk*

I understand where you might make the argument that Sokka and Katara can be played by an Inuit or an Indian or a Mexican or a Filipino, etc. etc. in other words, another BROWN actor who is, by definition, NOT WHITE because there is some ambiguity. But all this "it's just a tan" stuff is so BEYOND INSULTING it makes me want to hit someone.

[nthdraft]

oh, and the whole "you're irritating therefore your argument is invalid" is right out of "Derailing for Dummies."