I don’t post much about TV stuff because I don’t watch a lot of TV. But when I do, because my tastes have always been eclectic and a little weird, I tend to watch weird eclectic stuff. Thus was born my love of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s a children’s cartoon. Yeah, I know. But I fell passionately in love with this show, because it’s frankly some of the most original fantasy I’ve seen in a very long time. Like most good children’s shows, it’s made an effort to appeal to adults as well, through complex subject matter and multi-layered jokes — to great and successful effect. I watched the finale episode at a party with 20 other twenty- and thirtysomething adults, all of whom were literally holding their breath and cheering at various points. Yeah. Over a kids’ cartoon. It’s that good. Go rent/buy it and see for yourself.
But let me be blunt: one of the things that hooked me about this show was that it was set in an all-Asian world. And it wasn’t fucked up. OK, let me clarify. You know how usually, when there’s an Asian character in an American TV show, he (or more frequently she) ends up as the martial arts master, the (white) hero’s submissive love interest, the dragon lady vamp, or the magical elderly person dishing out nonsensical proverbs and occasionally a can of whoopass? The thing is, all of these stereotypes are present in Avatar to some degree. But because the whole world is Asian, they’re lost in a sea of non-stereotypical, non-exoticized, perfectly normal human beings. How amazing is that? Not only that, but Avatar actually depicts different Asian ethnicities. Though this is a fantasy world, there are clear allusions to the Inuit, Koreans, Mongols, Tibetans, several flavors of southeast Asian, various Indians, and more. The Chinese- and Japanese-analogues of the story actually come in several varieties (Earth Kingdom and Fire Kingdom, Kyoshi warriors, etc.). Better still, while there are lots of martial artists in the show, the vast majority of people in this world wouldn’t know a punch from Hawaiian Punch. Just like most people anywhere. I know, huh? Good shit.
Given all this, I wasn’t surprised that M. Night Shyamalan, twist-director extraordinaire, was drawn to the material in order to make a live-action film. I was actually excited about his direction when I heard. I don’t like all his movies, but at least he’s not some no-name music video director. So it sounds like he’s chosen his cast for the film.
Katara, as played by (non-Asian) Nicola Peltz
Zuko, as played by (non-Asian) Jesse McCartney
Sokka, as played by (non-Asian) Jackson Rathbone
What a twist!
I’m sick of this. I know it happens all the goddamn time, but I’m sick of it. This persistent belief on Hollywood’s part that brown people “don’t sell” has to change. I would’ve expected better from M. Night, who is Asian himself, but as we all know, being a PoC doesn’t make one immune to white supremacist thinking, or stupidity. I’m holding out one hope — that this is some kind of messed-up viral marketing effort, maybe using reverse psychology to get people all riled up about the film so they’ll blog about it, etc. But if this is really the cast they’re planning to go with, I will definitely be boycotting this movie, and urging everyone I know to do the same.
I propose we find out what day filming begins and get there, before M. Night shows up, with Stephen Chow, who will be wearing an ID badge saying “Shyamalan”. Anyone who actually knows M. Night can be paid off as necessary with autographed copies of “Kung Fu Hustle”.
Once we reach the studio, Chow (playing M. Night) will deliver his lines:
“What the hell is this? Who’s in charge of casting? Or, rather, who was in charge of casting, cause they’re beyond fired now! Schedule another audition for Monday! And get the writer in here, I’ve got a few words for them as well! I’m gonna be keeping a tighter reign on this production now, let me tell you.”
The many advantages of this move include:
– Improved casting
– Better humor
– Much better action sequences (esp. when combined with previous item)
I think it’s worth a shot. Think of the children.
Hm. But why is it important that the actors be Asian? Isn’t the story the point? Making it all non-Asian makes it as equally unpopulated with ethnic stereotypes as making it all Asian.
Because the original characters are Asian, which is clear from the animation and cultural context. It’s a deliberate change that says “only white people make interesting protagonists”. Which is really insulting.
In the short term, giving struggling Asian actors a leg up, in a role with actual billing.
In the long term, giving Asian-American children the opportunity to see someone like them in a hero’s role, thus making them feel more accepted and connected to American culture.
I could maybe see not necessarily making them all Asian. but making not a single one of them Asian? I don’t get it.
Is there some back story anywhere or is this simply a major casting fuckup? Or–and I would not be surprised by this–has the story been altered for the film so that
Is simply no longer true? Plenty of films make pretty radical changes during filmig, be it modern or older stuff.
I wonder that, because it would seem veryvery odd to have an Asian world (like the animation) filled with three putatively-Asian white characters trying to act Asian. So my money is that the cultural background which requires the characters to be Asian in order to fit in has also been changed.
this is so disappointing, making white the standard heroes in films. i think it’s also a major shift from the cartoon, and it saddens me because the cartoon is amazing…it reminds me of how in a movie about Kerouac (sorry, the title fails me) his “love interest” is played by a white woman, but in real life and in the book he wrote based on that she’s black.
it’s just such a drastic change. i hope enough hell is raised that they’ll have to change it…
Sailorman,
Yes, I’d been wondering about that, too. It’s one thing to whitewash something like Earthsea, which doesn’t deliberately evoke extant Earth cultures, but the Avatar story is fantasy based on real Asian myths/belief systems, so many and so obviously that I don’t see how they can be removed. The Avatar character is based on Tibet’s Dalai Lama (reincarnated with ancient knowledge, raised by monks, etc.), for example. So either they’re going to have these white kids basically pull a David Carradine yellowface act, or they’re going to change the whole thing to the point that it’s unrecognizable. I hope they do the latter, actually, so even “colorblind” fans will disown it and it’ll bomb.
you know, this also makes me think of this recurring theme of “brown-people magic.” though i’m not trying to insult the cartoon, i think casting white people in this fantasy realm which embodies eastern thought and religion just adds to the overwhelming amount of white actors playing “heroes” which involve brown-people magic. i think immediately of the Brenden Fraser Mummy movies (take your pick) where the white guy must battle against the magic of brown people (i don’t really need to point out that the egyptians in those movie were excessively light-skinned…). there are numerous movies like this where the white people must overcome the magical stuff caused by non-whites. i bet there’s a list somewhere.
with this in mind, is the cast of this movie going to be exclusively white, or will certain bad guys and wise-men be cast as asian?
That’s like doing the movie 300 and making the Spartans black people. It’s one thing to make Nick Fury, King Pin or even Lex Luthor black. But to make some ancient warriors living off the River Eurotas of African decent is kind of far off. That leaves you with the question… why? Therefore, why make Avatar characters white? It’s white supremacy. Not in the since of a ‘supreme Aryan race’ above all other peoples of the world. Instead the sickness that European culture has to be somehow interwoven into 57,268,900 square miles of every nook and cranny of the Earth’s surface.
Nothing has changed from the mentality of the 50’s through the 70’s. We were deprived of one of the greatest actors and martial arts experts of our time having his own tv show because white supremacy could not tolerate an ASIAN SHAOLIN MONK being ASIAN i.e. Bruce Lee. So some genius replaces BRUCE LEE with David Carradine. Let us get over this hump.
I’ve only seen a couple of episodes of this show, but it’s one of my thirteen-year-old sister’s favorites. She’s Chinese. I doubt that’s what attracted her to the show (she was quite a few years younger when she got into it), but I find it personally offensive that the film version of a show enjoyed by my Asian sister with Asian characters will be filmed with a white cast. It will make no sense to her, and it’s incredibly racist.
FilthyGrandeur,
Given that the main villains in the series are directly related to Zuko, who has been cast as white, I think they’re probably also going to be white.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the occasional “wise man” is cast as Asian, though. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bit characters are an assortment of races , so that we have a movie where the important people are all white and then there are some less important POC thrown in for that “fantasy flavor.”
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Agh. One of my favorite parts of Avatar is the delineation of differing ethnicities within the general Asian context. Making the bulk of the characters white, pretty much automatically blurs the specific ethnicity of any Asian characters remaining into “generic Asian” rather than Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, etc..
Don’t do it, M. Night!
Are you sure the director chose the cast to begin with? I think the studio has the strongest impact on who gets cast
The big difference between this and, as was mentioned, Nick Fury or Kingpin is that it’s about nationality.
The characters in this show are culturally Chinese, Japanese, etc. Nick Fury and Kingpin are Americans. Americans come in a variety of colours. Chinese people, on the other hand, are generally racially Chinese as well.
In one case, changing the race doesn’t fly directly in the face of the setting – it really doesn’t change Nick Fury much to make him a black dude.
In this case, it does.
Likewise, the proposals to have Wonder Woman played by a black woman are similarly wrong – Wonder Woman is an Amazon – as in, like, a mythical island of Greek mythology. Like, near Greece.
Strikes me this is less about white versus non-white as it is about media conglomerate blandness. (Or I guess I’m just more concerned about that; then again, me whitey.) Viacom is simply functioning as the horrific creature that it is: pounding all things into a cookie-cutter shape to better sell it.
There’s no point in getting mad at anyone in the production chain. M. Night’s in no position to fight for non-whites in the roles. His last batch of movies have been lambasted, and rightly so. And all the execs over him are following simplistic calculations of success, and, even more importantly, ridiculous notions of risk managment. What I’m surprised about is that this cartoon must be popular, y’know, in Asia. Is there no business model for a Western-based media conglomerate to even CONSIDER higher foreign grosses than U.S. Domestic sales?
If anybody, be mad at whoever made this cartoon thingy (that I’ve never heard of). Though I’m sure it’s a corporate property, it must’ve had a creator at one time. National/cultural identity cleary didn’t matter to whoever this was when he/she sold it to the cookie cutter express. (I’ll wiki the property after I write this; it sounds pretty cookie cutter itself.)
As for Nick Fury, he can be black. Just don’t let him–or more importantly any characters to come–be Ultimate. Ick.
Silenced is Foo,
I have to quibble here — the Amazon mythos achieved popularity in Greece, and is definitely a Greek creation, but seems to have been based on Herotodus fanficking tales he’d heard of a real tribe: the Amazighs of North Africa. Who I think are actually Caucasian in origin, since they’re a Berber people. They were historically matriarchial and their oral traditions are full of women leading the charge in battle. Even today, the Amazighs have retained some of their matriarchial roots — they’re Muslim now, but the men veil their faces rather than the women.
Herotodus stuck them somewhere in Iran and made up a bunch of shit about them lopping off breasts and whatnot. Then everyone got into it, and the Amazons ended up on an island, with a batshit queen, screwing Hercules… more interesting than the reality, so these are the versions that stuck.
So anyway, an Amazon story based on the Amazighs could very well have black Amazons. Not that this has anything to do with Wonder Woman, though. =)
Type12point,
I don’t know if the show is popular in Asia. It’s still an American cartoon, with poor character design and production values by Asian standards; in general our stuff doesn’t do too well over there.
That said, the cartoon’s creators sold the property to a corporate entity — Nickleodeon, a component of Viacom yes — years ago, because you don’t put a cartoon on TV without corporate backing these days. Nick allowed them to produce the story in cartoon form as-was, with the Asian content and characters intact. But apparently what’s OK for TV isn’t acceptable for film. I would agree with you that this is corporate blandness at work. But why does the blandness have to be white?? They could still turn it into some horrible “High School Musical” or 90210 ripoff in an ancient-China setting. What, do they think Asian kids don’t experience melodrama and teen angst?
I’m sure you already know the answers to this.
Movies cost much more than TV shows do when there are lots of special effects. (Especially true for something like this where the effects are going to be a huge part fo the story) Therefore they need a very broad appeal to justify the expense. So decisions are made with this in mind. Also, the people making the movie likely place a different priority on diversity than you do. I still think the movie could be as successful with an all Asian cast as an all white or mixed cast but I’m pretty sure this movie is going to suck. Pacing a series that was this long into a 90 (or even 120) minute movie will be *hard* bordering on the impossible.
@nojojojo
I learned something new today. Yay, I can turn my brain off now!
One of the things I also loved about this show was the strong women/girls–I love animae, but sometimes get sick of the weak/stupid/defenseless woman thing–though I try to stay away from these series, there always seems to be a few poping up in the storyline–In Avatar every female kicks major butt.
I am a thrity something–My guess is that this is being made for 5 year olds. It sucks.
When I saw the last Jet Li Jackie Chan Movie, I was very disappointed that it was a white boy who goes through time, and not an upcoming Asian actor–I thought it would’ve been a good chance for those 2 to push a fresh new face.
Actually, it’s equally likely that the Amazons were (or were conflated with) the Scythian women. They lived in exactly the region Herodotus describes them as living in, and we have several graves from that period wherein women are buried with their armor and weaponry. For that matter, Herodotus claims that the reasons there were no Amazons around when he lived was that they had intermarried with the Scythians.
/Classics geek
Holy shit! I just started watching Avatar during re-runs this summer (and, yes, I have nit-picks because I’m that sort of person but I loved it anyway) and this is fucking appalling.
Shane,
You’re watching the wrong anime. =) Most of what gets imported to the US is shounen, aimed at boys, so of course the girls in it tend to be stereotypical damsels in distress. Try some shoujo — the stuff aimed at girls, usually written by girls. Some of it’s hinky too, but most of it is about girls who kick butt.
Also, re Avatar’s target market — I’m not sure. Using the usual logic applied to books, the target market is slightly younger than the age of the characters. Since the characters are tweens and early teens (12-14), I’m guessing the show is aimed at 10-12 year olds.
Elizabeth Anne,
Oh, I don’t discount the various classics explanations, but I did do a lot of reseach on the Amazighs awhile back and was struck by the similarity between some of their myths/histories and what Herotodus wrote. Doesn’t mean the Scythians or other groups weren’t involved; I think he just mooched from multiple sources. What I’m pleased to know is that there were *lots* of female warriors in the ancient world (contrary to what most people think).
nojojojo – it could well be that I’m misremembering and you know this subject way better than me, but I thought the lopping-off-boobies part was invented by European art historians rather than being part of Herotodus’s stories.
The problem seems to be that they did the open casting call in Texas…
It’s not like there aren’t Asian people in Texas.
Considering how The Golden Compass did, I’d say signs point to “no”.
Or seinen, which is frequently worse. (Ugh. If I see one more Genki Girl…)
Also, if anyone’s interested, the trope name for this kind of nonsense–when characters in a story are recast as white–is Race Lift, second type.
Someone above mentioned Earthsea; Ursula K. Le Guin was mightily pissed off about the whitened TV version, and said so publically.
grendelkhan:
thanks for posting the article about Race Lift. I did not know there was a name for this, and it was a very interesting read…
Got to agree with grendelkhan about anime. The only anime I’ve seen where you typically have strong female characters is, ironically enough, the “harem” archetype. A “harem” anime is an anime where the typical spiky-haired Japanese boy has a half-dozen or so beautiful women move in with him for a variety of complex reasons. Cat-fighting, lots of romantic drama, and the occasional lipstick-lesbian relationship etc. inevitably ensues. Think “friends”, but with 5 girls and 1 dude. Oh, and the usual alien invasion/magic powers/monster attack/martial arts stuff is thrown in for good measure.
Inevitably the best character in the lot is a strong, kicking-ass-and-taking-names hard-partying woman who is utterly smitten with Our Hero.
And yeah, he falls for the quiet little One True Love good girl and the bad-ass drowns her sorrows and keeps on partying.
edit: I love how the Race Lift article mentions the original TMNT comics, and how Baxter Stockman was black. That’s hyper-obscure there.
You’re welcome! They’re (we’re?) pretty thorough about this sort of thing; see Race Tropes, which includes everything from “Black Dude Dies First” to “Uncle Tomfoolery” and “Space Jews”.
Can I ask which serious you’re thinking of? The only strong female protagonist I can think of is from Ghost in the Shell–the Major is an interesting and well-developed character, if you ignore her outfits, plus the Tachikomas were fascinating. The only specifically “harem” anime I managed to sit through was Elfen Lied, and I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing you were thinking of.
Although, now that I think of it, Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist was a strong character, especially in the episode “Reunion of the Fallen“.
Well, it’s Tropes. There Is No Such Thing As Notability. Where else can you find The Bard, PG-13 transformation-fetish webcomics, satirical mid-1970s SF novels, the most over-the-top ridiculous tabletop strategy game ever constructed and a forty-five minute short film released over the web, all in one place? It is, I say, the all-singing, all-dancing multifarious memetic nexus of all culture!
(Plus, I started that page on The Iron Dream. It’s a hilarious read.)
I don’t think Katara and Sokka should be played by asians, as they’re clearly Inuits, both judging by the colour of their skin and geographically where they’re from! Zuko, however, should have been asian, as the fire nation seem to have asian traits.
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Some people are trying to do something about it – the more people who join in the cause, the better!
http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/
The worst case of whitewashing was the making of Le Guin’s Earthsea, because it mangled a work of literature. Regarding Amazons, Herodotus based them not on North African Berbers, but on the Scythian/Sarmatian warrior women. These were considered a legend until kurgans (royal mound tombs) were found with female skeletons who bore weapon scars and whose funeral offerings included weapons and human sacrifices.
(I followed quite a few links here, but hi!)
I knew he was going to screw this up.
Avatar is probably my favorite cartoon, and arguably the best thing Nickelodeon has come up w/. It’s pretty ignorant of him to just pretend that it doesn’t matter that he is whitewashing this production.
I realize that every character in the series isn’t obviously of Asian descent, but Aang, and Zuko most definitely would be, and Katara and Sokka would not be white, and would more likely be Inuit or closer to a modern day Canadian Native.
It is shameful that POC have almost no one in mainstream pop culture who resembles them w/o it being a complete stereotype or horrid appropriation. They could and absolutely should do better than this.
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I am, what people also within the giant and crazed fan-based, an “avatard.” For the time the show was on, I never missed an episode and discussed them until there was little left to discuss. That’s what is great about the show. You can talk about every little detail and relate it to everything- wither it be what’s written in your history book or what’s happening outside your door in America. They are a mix of “Western” epics: Lord of the Rings, the Odyssey, moral-based kid shows, etc. with Anime all put in the context of Ancient Asian culture. It’s produced by two white guys, but that’s partly what’s so great about it. It’s not just another Anime that has been taken from Japan and dubbed in American-subtitles to be scrutinized and ruined. It’s not another stupid cartoon that lowers kid’s IQ’s. It’s a show that takes the incredible cultures of Asia and transforms them into something relatable and timeless to all cultures.
The reason why the cast’s color is important is because in order for the full-extent of the original cartoon to be transfered on to the big screen, it needs to remain accurate. In the show, every character, every clip of scenery, every story plot was carefully and accurately taken from real history and mythology. When I was learning about Kubilai Khan’s court in history class, I watched a video that showed images of what it would have looked like. They strongly resembled Ba Sing Se, almost exactly. I next learned about the White Lotus Society who tried to overthrow the Mongols that had taken over China as an underground secret group of men. The White Lotus Society appears in the show, a group of people who were planning for the overthrow of the Fire Nation, depicted extremely accurately. The only time where something is not accurate in avatar is when two cultures or myth/reality have been mixed. For example, the members of the White Lotus Society could not bend the elements and the “Fire Nation” that they are trying to overthrow do not represent the Mongols culturally.
Therefore, if the movie says whatever it’ll be ok if some of the cast is white because we can make them “appear” a little Asian, it’ll mess up with the accuracy and the whole point of the show (from my POV.) It’ll be lowered to a show that has little plot or point and deemed to many as some “weird Asian show that tried to be white and failed miserably.” If the Tibetan Monks aren’t Tibetan, it’ll lose that culturally tie.
Child hero who has to save the world.
Comic relief who follows child.
Girl who child has a crush on, and who helps the child believe in himself.
Evil prince who tries to capture child.
Evil overlord who tries to take over the world with evil princess.
That’s what the movie is gonna be about if the culturally references are ruined. With these characters, it doesn’t matter what the actors look like. They could be dogs for all we care.
But Avatar is not that simple.
Aang, 12 year old boy who has been raised by Monks because he, after choosing specific toys out of hundreds, was deemed the chosen savior to the world.
Sokka, a good-looking boy who uses sarcasm to cope with being left to care of his sister in his small tribe. He also likes to eat meat, which he has learned to hunt from his tribe. He falls in love with a woman warrior who uses fans to fight and a princess who is arranged to marriage someone in order to keep with what her culture accepts.
Katara, a girl from a small tribe who is holds on to hope to cope with losing her mother. She is strong willed and defies sexism. She resembles all the woman warriors who have fought for what they believe in, using her skill of healing and waterbending as well as advice and patience to help Aang.
Zuko, a prince coming from a royal family in which he has been banished from due to speaking out against his father’s cruelty. He has a life of luxury in a fancy court until he left to go on a journey to see what his father’s rules due to the peasants.
How can these characters, so specific and unique. Characters that fit perfectly into all the stories lines, build from real events and people of the past, be changed and alters into stereotypes?
It frustrates me.
It’s sad to say that I just got into this show, and finished watching it last week. I actually searched out this post (I remembered reading it a while back) and I just want to say I agree. I’m so disappointed at the casting.
At least the original show is still awesome! ^_^