Avatar live-action movie: Post round-up

[vejiicakes]

DISCLAIMER: If you are remaining neutral/not interested, dudes, that's all good and fine. This is not meant to be an attack on you. These were my reactions to actual commentary/questions made throughout the course of this Avatar casting business; nothing more. (Good idea, Glock!)

My final thoughts (because, you know, my first post wasn't long

Comments

[izkariote]

*cough*

--Why is it that I feel as though this issue touches upon the very stuff I got flack for on another end of Fandomville?

[vejiicakes]

Which one was that?

[izkariote]

Aaah, the one where I posted on somebody complaining about a manga being anti-feminist.

[vejiicakes]

I'm not entirely sure I see the cross-section of where that issue and this one line up, but I'll assume it has something to do with the general climate of fans reacting to the political/cultural/socially-based opinions of other fans...?

[shuraiya]

MICHELLE

SOMEONE JUST COMPARED ALL THIS TO ONE PIECE FOR ME

AND I *GET IT*

Well, I mean, I understand why people are upset because the show is about cultural diversity and overcoming stereotypes and everything, and I think the elimination of darker skinned people does eliminate the main point of the show, but I'm still... I don't know, it feels like most people aren't addressing this in particular? I think it's so much more than a race issue, it's like taking away the "follow your dreams, no matter what" aspect of One Piece. ;_;

One part gushing about Avatar; one part actual explanation

[vejiicakes]

One Piece? How so? Because I actually wouldn't have said the show was about cultural diversity really, because the diversity just is*. It's part and parcel of the whole show. Diversity exists, but it's such a non-statement in the show--and that non-statement IS a statement in itself. (I mean, there are stereotypes for some to overcome, but it's more character or politically motivated than racial.) To give a different example, the female characters in Avatar are amazing. They're varied, complex, strong, flawed, and basically receive the same care and attention that go into the male characters. This is only noted because that kind of even treatment is so rare in a lot of pop-culture media. And yet, I would not say that the show was about gender equality (interestingly, one of the "good" nations is noticeably patriarchal, whereas the "bad" nation is very egalitarian--and yet this isn't meant as a statement on what an ideal society should be, it just is) either

Re: One part gushing about Avatar; one part actual explanation

[shuraiya]

Well, the way she was saying it, one of the big themes of Avatar is the cultural diversity, right? Like, overcoming the prejudice everybody has for each other? I don't think it has anything to do with being Asian or European but diversity within the imagined cultures in the show. And I guess, if you don't have racial diversity, you lose one of the big themes of the show? And that's how it's like taking away the "accomplish your dreams" concept of One Piece. It's not really like it in any other way

Re: One part gushing about Avatar; one part actual explanation

[vejiicakes]

Well, the way she was saying it, one of the big themes of Avatar is the cultural diversity, right? Like, overcoming the prejudice everybody has for each other? I don't think it has anything to do with being Asian or European but diversity within the imagined cultures in the show.

I.. don't really.. like I said, I always felt the cultural diversity was pretty non-statement. People have prejudice from each other, but it's more because like, this one nation (Fire) is really really oppressive. It's politically motivated prejudice--even though the four nations are pretty homogenous (Fire Nation people are uniformly light skin/black hair/gold eyes and Water Tribe people are all brown skin/brown hair/blue eyes), people actually have to find out what nation you're from before any prejudice actually happens. I mean, aside from the predominantly Tibetan Wind culture and predominantly Inuit Water culture, the only diversity (of the fantasy variety within the show) between the east-Asian-mishmash Fire and Earth nations is that.. one likes red

Pajiba agrees with your anger

[viloki9]

http://www.pajiba.com/the-last-airbender-gets-a-cast.htm

[dernam]

The majority of Avatar's audience (being on Nickelodian in the US) I assume is white children. So they argue that these children should get to see themselves as part of the Avatar universe whereas using people of color would alienate them. On a business stand point, it is a terrible idea to alienate the majority of your consumers.

On the fairness standpoint... People of color should have movies that represent them too and it stands to reason that the universe that represents them in a cartoon should continue to represent them in movie form. So you're not saying it's bad to have an all white cast in ANY movie. You're saying it's terrible to have an all white cast in this particular movie for many good reasons. I don't think everyone understands this.

Furthermore, I think that white children can (just this once) handle not being in the spotlight. The rest of us have been dealing with it all our lives. o.o

[sabra_n]

White children did handle not being in the spotlight - Avatar got good ratings, and I'm sure not all from Asian-American children.

[vejiicakes]

Heck, Dora the Explorer wasn't doing so poorly with white American children either, last I heard.