I'm so beyond pleased and grateful for all these helpful, informative, proactive posts cropping up in response to yesterday's righteous ranting (often made by the same people, so that's awesome). We've united already in the indignation and offense with snark and angry words--now it's time for polite but strongly worded action! I'm hitting up all the resources outlined here and in AAW and Ali's posts, and then going back to studying for finals. GREAT post, Glock
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Dude, I'm on the border of crying right now, you speak such amazing and beautiful wisdom.
If the entire culture of the nations are broadly Asian or Inuit, shouldn't the burden of proof be on them to make a really good case for why on earth these people should be white? Why is the burden of proof on US to make the argument that the people in a broadly non-white culture should be, well, NON-WHITE?
God, this, see? This. I just. I didn't even THINK of it this way. That only makes me want this campaign to succeed even more. YARRRR. <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
Thank you for posting this! I haven't yet seen any ATLA, but so many people whose opinions I respect think it's the awesomest thing ever. This casting thing is outrageous and made of WTFery. Thank you for this information; I'll comment again when I've written my letters.
One letter, to Paramount! Thank you for the information! I may have Avatar fans on my f'list, but you're the only one to mention this so far and I'm so glad you did!
you know, I'm pretty sure all the races in this show are supposed to be different/non-existent in our world--although the *culture* is def. Asian. If i were to say what race they are closest with, however, I would say that the fire and earth nations are most similar to Asian, where the water tribes is more like Latino or Hispanic, and the air nomads are most like white people. Sorry, that's just how they look--whether or not they made the show have such strong Asian influence. Now, this isn't exact. I mean, come on, in the water tribes everyone has darker skin and blue eyes, and the fire nation have *gold* eyes! I think they went with a very creative route so that *new* races were created for this, so I don't think it can be so easily said that Aang, or any character *is Asian*
Feel free to disagree with or illuminate anything I say here. My beef with extra-racial casting (is that an acceptable euphemism? dunno) is when the character's race/nationality is significant to the storyline, and they completely chuck that significance. I don't have a problem with it when they lift the story completely and set it in the nation of the new adaptation. For example, Ringu being turned into The Ring and set in the U.S., well, yeah, I get what they're doing.
So if they're setting Avatar in a different civilization altogether, where the culture/race/etc. is predominantly white, I wouldn't have a problem with the casting. I might not like the change itself, in which case I just wouldn't go see it, but I wouldn't think of it as offensive. Just not my preference. But if the setting isn't changing and they're casting white actors, yeah, that makes me mad.
Yarrrrrrr, I totally agree. I found and continue to find nothing extraordinarily wrong or offensive about supplanting plots from various movie industries - Hollywood, Bollywood, Euromovies, Hong Kong - they've been doing it for decades, and why not. If a story is good but needs to be tailored towards the audience and therefore many cultural things change, then fine, whatevs it's all good. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but it's definitely not discriminatory in any way.
But yes - when a story remains in the original setting/environment/culture but the characters themselves are switched out for white actors, I just can't abide.
This is a really good point though and I LOVE that you brought it up. Nummy food for thought and good material for debate! XD
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If the entire culture of the nations are broadly Asian or Inuit, shouldn't the burden of proof be on them to make a really good case for why on earth these people should be white? Why is the burden of proof on US to make the argument that the people in a broadly non-white culture should be, well, NON-WHITE?
God, this, see? This. I just. I didn't even THINK of it this way. That only makes me want this campaign to succeed even more. YARRRR. <3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
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Srsly, I won't bite you if you aren't anonymous. I enjoy discourse.
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So if they're setting Avatar in a different civilization altogether, where the culture/race/etc. is predominantly white, I wouldn't have a problem with the casting. I might not like the change itself, in which case I just wouldn't go see it, but I wouldn't think of it as offensive. Just not my preference. But if the setting isn't changing and they're casting white actors, yeah, that makes me mad.
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But yes - when a story remains in the original setting/environment/culture but the characters themselves are switched out for white actors, I just can't abide.
This is a really good point though and I LOVE that you brought it up. Nummy food for thought and good material for debate! XD
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Yes, yes! Thank you for summarizing it that way; I couldn't find the words.
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