Your lurid palette of Friday fail, but with some win included!

[kali921]

Regarding my post yesterday over on Scans Daily 2.0 featuring Jeff Parker's problematic choices in rendering chromatic characters in Dark Reign: The Hood #1, dear God.

The racefail.

Nipping at its heels are this and this. Not only do we get a "you're looking for things to get pissed off about" slot on the bingo card, but we also get a take on

Comments

[kali921]

The cast for this film remains whitewashed. I don't care if Noah Ringer knocks it out of the ballpark as Aang and wins an Oscar, I don't care how visually authentic and beautiful the costumes are, the fact remains that the cast remains whitewashed and thus this is not a film I can support no matter how pretty it may turn out to be. I'm glad that they cast two of the titular leads with actors that are proficient in martial arts, but I'm sure that there is no shortage of young Asian boys with martial arts proficiency who look more like Aang than Noah Ringer does.

(Also, where is Dev's topknot? I want a Zuko S1 topknot!)

[jencendiary]

Totally unrelated: But isn't Scion the best thing White Wolf's thought of in years?

[jencendiary]

I was a little uncomfortable when I read that they were using 2 contemporary religions with the mythological ones, given WW's track record of cultural fetishizing, but their handling of African Diasporan traditions was pretty sensitive. (I'm not familiar enough with the Japanese religion in question to tell how that was handled.) And that reservation handled, I was thrilled as all get-out with the setting and the metaplot. (As much as WW insists you can run a game without it, a bad metaplot will ruin my enjoyment of a game system every time.

Re: Avatar

[box_in_the_box]

O HAI RACE!FAIL AT NEWSARAMA

Re: Avatar

[kali921]

I FORGOT THAT JACKSON RATHBONE IS SOKKA

WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH

(I'm pleasantly surprised that there are some commenters at the 'Rama who actually AGREE that there's racefail in the casting. No, really, I am. I've gotten so used to thinking of the 'Rama regular commenters like most people think of the Pit that I'm always shocked when a voice of reason asserts itself.)

[kali921]

On the plus side, Parker writes an awesome Jimmy. But in all honesty, I can no longer in good conscience rave to people anymore about how awesome Jeff Parker is after seeing those pages. I winced at Parker's Luke Cage and at the White Man's Burden scene in the original AoA mini that Parker did (meaning, the scene where Gorgeous White Lady Venus heals the rift between warring African tribes blah blah blah) but tried to dismiss those as little kinks in an otherwise smoooooth ride. But after this? I'll be treading with caution where Parker is concerned. I'll be abundantly talking about the problems I see in his writing with Africans/African Americans/Fake Bruneians. I want to love Jeff Parker; he's got a great sense of plotting, he's liberal with the crack, he doesn't stint on humor, and he doesn't shy away from scale.

[outlawpoet]

What a twist?

[kali921]

A twist on...?

[outlawpoet]

Did you never see that Robot Chicken recurring M. Shyamalan parody? It's M doing random things and when events take the characteristic MNS turn at the end, he turns to the camera and says "What a twist!"