Comments | maisontv: More Fail

maisontv

More Fail

Feb 10, 2010 16:03

Official trailer for The Last Airbender has been released.

Remember how I was saying that the lack of acting in the first two trailers was a bad sign? I was right. I was so very, very right and I hate that I was ( Read more... )

news, the last airbender, film, racebending, animation

Comments 30

littledelusion February 10 2010, 22:54:30 UTC

Strangely, I can mildly see a resemblance with Sokka and White!Sokka. ...clearly being snowed in has been taxing on my fragile mind.

maisontv February 10 2010, 23:01:40 UTC

No, I see it too. They have similar facial structures.

(The comment has been removed)

maisontv February 11 2010, 01:47:16 UTC

WHY IS IT THAT WHEN WE FINALLY GET A KATARA ACTION FIGURE, IT'S FOR THIS PIECE OF FAIL MOVIE?! >:(

thursdays_girl February 11 2010, 04:17:30 UTC

Why don't they just premier this film on Nickelodeon? Clearly, they put as much thought into as a made-for-tv film.

The issue with race in this film goes all the way back to when it was first announced. You'd have thought they would have realized it was something that needed to be addressed (watch, one of the actors will say they're half/part Inuit/Vulcan/Hispanic in an interview).

Thanks for including that video. The amount of effort that Bryke and the animators put into the cartoon is gorgeous...I don't think we'll be able to say the same about the film.

I apologize for the mini essay in advance maisontv February 11 2010, 05:36:49 UTC

One of the things that I find absolutely hilarious in a PR!Fail sort of way is the fact that two months after the casting was announced and just as the Racebending (then called Aang Ain't White) movement started to get some attention, Jesse McCartney had "scheduling conflicts" and was replaced by Dev Patel. And then the studio had the nerve to be astounded when that didn't make it better ( ... )

Re: I apologize for the mini essay in advance thursdays_girl February 11 2010, 05:47:24 UTC

This film was a fantastic opportunity for the production company to really broaden the audience's horizon and show that there there are common themes regardless of race/culture/etc and be able to bridge those differences with the idea that this was a fictional world; tie in various parts of various cultures in a way that flowed from one to the other and might have started a dialogue where kids got to learn something about people just a little different than themselves.

Instead we've got a pretty horrible situation on our hands. Everything you just said in your mini essay (which I enjoyed) is dead-on, and frustrating.

I know that if I had kids, they would NOT being going to see this film and we would be having a conversation about why we weren't.

And I'll wait for a Sunday in _twat, if you know what I mean.

Re: I apologize for the mini essay in advance maisontv February 11 2010, 06:04:37 UTC

This film was a fantastic opportunity for the production company to really broaden the audience's horizon

Exactly. With the series, children of different ethnic backgrounds were able to have heroes who looked like them while caucasian children learned a little bit about cultures other than their own. Guess what? I know a ton of white kids who love the show and have no problem with the lead characters not being white. Race doesn't matter to them. It only starts mattering to them when media decisions like this tell them that it matters. Studies have shown that the ideas children form about race and discrimination mainly come from the media. Parents may tell their kids that discrimination is bad, but they don't really sit down and explain it to them. So the message that's reinforced is the one the media constantly bombards them with ( ... )

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cafemusain February 13 2010, 06:06:46 UTC

Ohhh this movie is going to be such a hot mess. I've accepted it and moved on.

but I see you have a Zutara icon and I approve heartily

maisontv February 13 2010, 16:21:57 UTC

The thing I can't let go about it is that it's a blatant symptom of racism in Hollywood. So for me it's not about Avatar anymore; I'm just using Avatar as an springboard to discuss a larger issue. (Okay, a little fangirl part of me is still a tiny bit bitter and is like "come share my pain". But mostly it's about the racism.)

YAY ANOTHER ZUTARA FAN! :D

cafemusain February 13 2010, 16:57:11 UTC

It really is upsetting, the way they've whitewashed the cast and then, as if it weren't bad enough, made the villains notably darker-skinned than the "heroes". I'll admit it, I'm white, and I *adored* the series when I was younger and it was airing, and in some part that was because it wasn't like every other tv show at the time. I don't honestly see why Hollywood thought that the movie wouldn't sell unless the heroes were white. It speaks a lot to what movies are saying to kids.

I'm not even going to get into what I predict for the female characters, who the tv show made it a point to make into strong, independent characters. I'm a bit disenchanted with treatment of females after seeing the Percy Jackson movie and I get the feeling Avatar's not gonna be much better.

Zutara is the best man; the Kataang ending was probably the only thing about that show that ever disappointed me.

maisontv February 13 2010, 17:22:12 UTC

If you go up in the comments to the conversation I had with thursdays_girl I commented about these things in more detail, but I found it hysterically funny that the studio recast Zuko with Dev Patel to prove they weren't racist when he's initially billed as the villain and then were surprised when that just made the Racebending movement angrier. (BTW, I'm the whitest white girl ever - my skin is so pale that the lightest shade of foundation I can get at the store is a touch darker than my skin tone - and I'm offended that the studio thinks that I can't relate to characters if they aren't white.)

It speaks a lot to what movies are saying to kids.Exactly. Studies show that the media has a very strong impact on the ideas kids form about race ( ... )

Thread 5