Fear of a Black (Fantasy) Planet

[tablesaw]

No time for a list of things just yet.

The casting for the live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender has been announced. See if you can spot a problem:

Comments

[drelfina]

I'm here because I saw a bit about the casting from a friend's LJ, and while I was resistant to watching Avatar (because just how GOOD can they get an Asian based fantasy without it somehow turning into The Empire Series by Raymond E. Feist? And that's a bit of hypocrisy there because I'm not that good an Asian writer myself and all my writing is in English...), I knew that it was heavily influenced by Asian cultures (Do Inuit count as Asian? how odd that everything that is non-White gets counted as Asian, unless it's Black.) and I'm utterly offended by the casting of all white characters.

I am reminded of the time when I watched Forbidden Kingdom - two of my favourite martial arts actors, and I'd read reviews where they said that they were so glad to be working together because they were so experienced in martial arts (Technically Jackie Chan's not trained in Martial arts like Jet Li, but for film they're on the same level) and I was looking forward to more martial arts.

Imagine my utter shock when they cast a white boy as the

[drelfina]

(never mind that 'appealling to the target American demographic' means White Male. Sometimes white Female. All those Asians, born and raised in America for generations, those Blacks born and raised in America, everyone, they don't count. Because they're not White and therefore aren't American.)

[marag]

I'm glad to see someone mention Forbidden Kingdom. While I enjoyed the movie, I was *aghast* to see that a white boy was the main character who saves the world, and I was sad nobody but me seemed to have noticed or cared how obnoxious that was. (My hubby and I went to see it because...Jackie Chan and Jet Li!!!!!)

I'm white as it's possible to be without actually being albino and I'd have been thrilled to see the movie without a white character in sight.

If this Avatar cast is the final cast, I will not see this movie. No way.

[drelfina]

I was complaining the whole way about white brat in there, till my brothers told me it was AMERICAN that's what they DO and shut up please shut up can we watch this other Wholly Made In China movie instead, will this shut you up? yay.

I'm Asian. Born and bred in Singapore, I've always watched a mix of movies both Asian and American/British/Western, so it comes as a complete surprise to me that apparently white americans are too dumb to be able to enjoy a movie that doesn't have a white main character, or so Hollywood sayz.

[meatymarah]

Not gonna lie: as much as I love anime/manga/Avatar, I have always sorta seen how the characters can look more caucasian than asian

[anonymous]

I've seen about, maybe ten episodes of Avatar on the whole due to the fact that my brother is a big fan; I never liked Brian Koneitzko or Di Martino enough for the project because it seemed like they were trying to capitalize on "Asian-flavor" (you know what I mean; packaged orientalism.) About all I loved of the show was Hakoda and Bato's designs, the evil princess, and Mako, who brought his usual humor and warmth to the voice acting