Live-action The Last Airbender movie

[poeticalpanther]

I won't be seeing it, despite - no, in fact, because of - my belief that it's simply the best animated series ever made. And I really, realy hope you won't pay to see it either.

I was going to write a long post explaining why, but instead I'll write a long post AND link to this brilliant explanation, from right here on Livejournal

Comments

[poeticalpanther]

Ayuh. Well, if we don't register the protest publicly, then when it fails, they'll just blame it on the residual "Asianness". I see the public protest as the only way to say, "hey, if this movie fails, know that it failed at least in part because you whitewashed it."

[aisb23]

Sort of the same reason I didn't see the SyFy channel miniseries of Earthsea. Based on the previews alone I said I was sure Ursula LeGuin was spitting nails.

Well that and the fact that just about anything SyFy does is guilty until proven innocent.

[poeticalpanther]

Oh, total truth. I turned off Earthsea as soon as it came on and it became clear that Ged wasn't even slightly brown. :/

[aisb23]

I mean I get that when you adapt a novel, any novel, to the screen you have to make compromises. But when the author has described the characters/cultures in a specific way she/he has done so for a reason and it makes sense and requires no more money or effort to make your adaptation fit the racial description.

[irenes]

Grmph. I'm just now reading the Earthsea books. I wasn't aware of the miniseries. *sigh*

[flewellyn]

I thought the actor playing Aang was Chinese-American?

[poeticalpanther]

If he is, they've been awfully quiet about it, and I can't imagine they would, given the enormous deal they made out of their retrocasting Dev Patel in, to cover their asses (they brought him in to play a villain - and the other secondary characters from the villainous Fire Nation are all POC too, while the main characters in the white hats are all white - even Suki, though every other member of the Kyoshi warriors isn't white). They peopled the background with POC, so they could claim it'd diverse, when all it shows is how pale their main cast is.

The guy playing Sokka even mentioned in a public interview how he figured he'd have to "get a tan" to play Sokka, or squint or something. It's a racefail of a huge order.

The biggest complaints have to do with Sokka and Katara, though, who even in the animated series, are quite brown-skinned, especially compared to Aang. Both are played by very white people.

[flewellyn]

That is indeed objectionable.

I find myself torn over the movie. I am loving the series so far, but so much of what I love about it is the diversity, in the real sense (as opposed to the Hollywood idea of diversity), and the authenticity of the cultures.

[uniquecrash5]

I'd heard something about this, and checked out the racebending.com site, and I agree - that's just fucking bullshit. Grah. I'm not going to see the movie either and I'll recommend people I know not go see it.