# M Night Shyamalan criticized for "racecasting" in The Last Airbender.  Your thoughts?



## Mai Shiranui (May 1, 2010)

> The casting of white actors in the Asian-influenced Avatar  universe triggered negative reactions from some fans marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and a protest outside of a Philadelphia casting call for movie extras.  Rathbone dismissed the complaints in an interview with MTV, saying, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."  Movie critic Roger Ebert was one of the critical voices against the casting. When asked about casting a white cast to portray the characters, he said, "The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts."  Jevon Phillips of the Los Angeles Times noted that despite Shyamalan's attempts to defuse the situation, the issue will "not fade away or be overlooked", and that this film exemplifies the need for a debate within Hollywood about racial diversity in its films.



*Do you think M Night Shyamalan should have gone for a predominantly Asian cast because the series is made up of Asian characters?  

How much creative decision should a director have when making a film inspired by an established book, television show, or other established media?

Do you think The Last Airbender would have been regarded as a different "type" of movie if the cast was predominantly Asian?*


Personally, I think the director has the right to make the film in his vision, even if it means changing the ethnicity of the characters, or the setting, or even the language they speak.  I've always been a firm believer in, "If you want something to duplicate the original, just go watch the original!"  I used this phrase a lot when fans of Tolkien's books criticized Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy for it's many changes.  I think if Shyamalan had chosen to have a predominantly Asian cast, the film wouldn't do as well in North America, where Asian movies such as _Hero_ just aren't as popular as movies that star predominantly Caucasian actors (such as Transformers.  Do you think Transformers would have been as popular in NA, if it starred an Asian cast?)  

The odd thing is, even though Shyamalan's being criticized for a casting shout-out put out by his production crew, calling for "Caucasian and other ethnicity actors", _The Last Airbender_ seems to feature many actors who appear to have very eastern features (India, Middle East, etc.)  I personally don't have a problem with it.  But I'd like to know what the community thinks.


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## Bart (May 1, 2010)

Intriguing 

I agree, for example, they should have gone with an actor of Inuit decent, or even an Inuit themselves, for the role of Sokka instead of casting Rathbone etc.

Would they pull of something similar with Bleach?


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## Kusogitsune (May 1, 2010)

Remember this sitcom called "All American Girl"? It was the first and last american network sitcom with a predominantly asian cast, and do you know why? Because white people can't relate to them. So of course Shyamalan is going to cast more white folk in this movie; white people don't wanna watch a movie about asians, and they're the ones with the money. Racist? Yes. But Night gotta eat too.


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## shadowlords (May 1, 2010)

I don't really mind cause the movie industry has been taking a dump on asians for years. The Last Samurai, Dragonball Evolution, and now this.


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## Nodonn (May 1, 2010)

You people really need to have a less racist look at the world.

People are people.


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## Kusogitsune (May 1, 2010)

Nodonn said:


> You people really need to have a less racist look at the world.
> 
> People are people.



And money is money.


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## Mai Shiranui (May 1, 2010)

Nodonn said:


> You people really need to have a less racist look at the world.
> 
> People are people.



It's not racist to see peoples differing ethnicity..  it's racist to regard them as inferior because of their different ethnicity from your own.  Yes, we're all humans, but it's our different ethnicity that makes our species unique.


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## MartialHorror (May 1, 2010)

To be honest, if you have anyone to blame, blame the general audiences, not the filmmaker.

How many asian stars do you have? Jackie Chan and Jet Li, sure, but they're not a huge draw anymore in America. Who else is there? THERE ARE NO BIG ASIAN STARS IN AMERICA ANY MORE!

So you guys only have yourselves to blame for refusing to watch their movies and making them hits. 

Studios just want surefire hits. They dont care about race. They want the people who will bring them money.

Calling the studio or director racist is wrong, both factually and morally(that shit should not be treated so loosely.)

As for the casting, to be honest, I dont care as long as they embody the characters well enough. I'd probably be a bit more irked here than in Dragonball(which doesnt have races)......in fact, when you think about it, does Avatar even talk about races?

Sure, Toph looks pretty Asian. Aang might. Amusingly, race in the cartoon is almost stereotyped in that regard. At the same time, everyone speaks English. I dont think race is meant to exist in the same way it does in the real world.


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## Mai Shiranui (May 1, 2010)

We're not blaming the filmmaker.. we're talking about the people who are.


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## Nandireya (May 1, 2010)

His decision to change how some of the names are pronounced got to me...


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## Seto Kaiba (May 1, 2010)

Nodonn said:


> You people really need to have a less racist look at the world.
> 
> People are people.



Oh come on. Do not act like this was color-blind casting.

I think it's ridiculous to ignore how the heroes are to be portrayed by white actors and the Indian/Far East Asian actors are mostly the villains...DB:E had this same problem with an Asian supporting cast with a white lead (and Bulma), or "21", and "Forbidden Kingdom" too. It's just so damn obvious what's being done here I don't see how anyone could ignore it.

I mean, just because it wouldn't feature white leads doesn't mean it wouldn't be successful, and because it does have white leads doesn't guarantee success at all. 

Yes, a director should TRY and flare it up a bit, yet keep the story and characters recognizable. You know, retain the "integrity" of the story.

Which is why I disagree with the OP, I DON'T think a director should cast any actor as a certain hero when adapting a series, Their physical features are like part of their trademark. It would be absolutely ludicrous if anyone other than a Caucasian male was cast as Peter Parker, because he's a Caucasian male! Superman, he's not an Earthling at all, but he'd CLEARLY be immediately recognized as one having Caucasian features, and it'd be ridiculous to cast anyone other than a Caucasian male actor as Superman. 

I also don't think they should try and take it TOO much in their own direction. Just look at Joel Schumacher and his _Batman_ movies...hell, look at many adaptation movies like "The Last Airbender", where you get the impression the director thinks he could tell the story better than the original writers and just fucks it all up (Uwe Boll). They should try to put their own creative twist to it, but only to an extent.


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## Graham Aker (May 1, 2010)

Rain for Sokka.


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## Roy (May 1, 2010)

As long as he thinks it'll work.


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## Ms. Jove (May 1, 2010)

It does often appear that his daughters have an unsavory amount of influence in this film. At least, that's what I've insinuated from interviews. I know one of his daughters is friends with Nicola Peltz.


It's well-documented that M. Night is a legitimate fan of the series, so it's not a case of him misinterpreting the source material. I believe M. Night simply made a grievous error. He wanted a multicultural cast, and that's it. I don't agree with him, but I understand.

Animation has a way of softening things, because in animation personalities become paramount. People can lust for Katara, despite the fact that she's 14, because animation tends to blur age lines. Likewise, people loved Aang and identified with him, regardless of their race. So I can see why the Fire Nation is Indian: M. Night strongly identified with Zuko, so in lieu of casting himself as Zuko he thankfully cast Dev Patel.

If you remember the alternative, this is _much_ preferable. 

The biggest blunder is the Water Tribe duo, and it's a colossal one at that because not only did he cast them as _white_ white, he's cast the extras to look like Water Tribe from the show. So basically, an Inuit village where there just happen to be a few white people. 


So is it tacit racism? Possibly. Probably. I like what Racefail and a number of other organizations are doing to promulgate the deep-rooted problems evident here. It seems that people are starting to take notice of this issue.


But I won't endorse boycotting the movie, since that hurts the _Avatar_ brand at a time when Mike and Bryan are trying to develop a new series.


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## Detective (May 1, 2010)

Jove said:


> So I can see why the Fire Nation is Indian: M. Night strongly identified with Zuko, so in lieu of casting himself as Zuko he thankfully cast Dev Patel.



If he had somehow incorporated himself into the role of Zuko, it would have been his biggest Tw~st ever. I still sometimes wonder if he was joking around about a cameo of himself as the Cabbage Merchant.

P.S: I agree with your other points entirely.

P.P.S: Psych needs to come back. As in Now.


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## Aruarian (May 1, 2010)

I'm gonna boycott download the film just because it's from M. Night.


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## MartialHorror (May 1, 2010)

Mai Shiranui said:


> We're not blaming the filmmaker.. we're talking about the people who are.



Yeah, sorry, wasn;t paying attention.


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## Shirker (May 1, 2010)

Racecasting? He's obviously not doing a good job of it. Katara's black. 

Meh, I really don't care. Now I don't agree with you view on changes to a series. I believe when you're watching a movie based on something, there shouldn't be a slew of wacky changes. Making Aang 16 and a woman wouldn't sit well with fans . Still, I do believe that creative liberties aren't a big problem and are probably even _needed_ to reach a broader audience. I'm pretty sure Dragons wasn't an exact replication piece by piece.

This "race" issue sounds like the latter to me. As long as the feel of the story and the character's personalities aren't changed significantly (or if they are, make them likeable), stuff like what race plays what, name pronunciations and story alterations for the sake of time isn't a problem to me. Yeah, he called for some white actors. It might sound a bit racist, but bluntly, it's one of the things the American audience is use to. It's not like he made Aang blonde, anyway. Pair this with the fact that there are OTHER ETHNICITIES called for AAANND were casted, it's not a big issue.


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## Ennoea (May 1, 2010)

I only have one issue with the film. I never had an issue with Aang, actually I felt that M Night got that right. I can even take a white Sokka and Katara, but why the fuck are the Fire Nation Indian? If you're gonna go multi-cutural then cast them Asian. General Zhao doesn't sound Indian now does it?

Having said that atleast the film looks faithful otherwise so we're pretty lucky.


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## MF NaruSimpson (May 1, 2010)

M night famously cast white people in his movies anyway.  The few non-white person who appears in his movies are himself.  And he claims to be inspired by indian culture in his writing.


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## Shade (May 1, 2010)

At this point, with the faithfulness he's shown in the trailer, the race issue seems to be the only big blunder he's made in the adaptation. The Sokka/Katara thing seems to be the key to it really; other than that, it seems he's sticking to the race he's assigned to each nation. Toph is supposed to be Asian so I'm guessing the rest of Earth is gonna look like that too. Aaang was cast pretty much perfectly though.


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## Damaris (May 1, 2010)

All I have to say is that _Hero_ was an amazing movie.


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## CBACS (May 1, 2010)

Ennoea said:


> I only have one issue with the film. I never had an issue with Aang, actually I felt that M Night got that right. I can even take a white Sokka and Katara, but why the fuck are the Fire Nation Indian? If you're gonna go multi-cutural then cast them Asian. General Zhao doesn't sound Indian now does it?
> 
> Having said that atleast the film looks faithful otherwise so we're pretty lucky.


Indians are Asians...


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## Ennoea (May 1, 2010)

> Indians are Asians...



No shit, but theres a difference between South Asian and East Asian and its obvious which of them the writers based the Fire Nation on.


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## CBACS (May 1, 2010)

Ennoea said:


> No shit, but theres a difference between South Asian and East Asian. And I know for a fact one of them doesn't do martial arts.


Whatever, I don't give two shits anyway.


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## Dragonus Nesha (May 2, 2010)

Jove said:


> The biggest blunder is the Water Tribe duo, and it's a colossal one at that because not only did he cast them as _white_ white, he's cast the extras to look like Water Tribe from the show. So basically, an Inuit village where there just happen to be a few white people.


Well, that can be easily covered by the Northen Water Tribe supposedly being more Caucasian-based. Because of that, Sokka and Katara will have Caucasian ancestry through Kanna/Gran-gran.


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## Velocity (May 2, 2010)

I would rather a skilled actor than someone who just looks the part. I doubt many Inuits went to acting school.


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## Just Blaze (May 2, 2010)

The Asian actors in Gran Torino sucked at acting.  Probably not their fault since they didn't get much experience.  But the M Night isn't going to risk his career with bad actors.


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## FFLN (May 2, 2010)

Seto Kaiba said:


> Oh come on. Do not act like this was color-blind casting.
> 
> I think it's ridiculous to ignore how the heroes are to be portrayed by white actors and the Indian/Far East Asian actors are mostly the villains...DB:E had this same problem with an Asian supporting cast with a white lead (and Bulma), or "21", and "Forbidden Kingdom" too. It's just so damn obvious what's being done here I don't see how anyone could ignore it.
> 
> ...



That's true enough. What really seems to make a difference are the production values, the story, and the characters. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon can be considered a huge success in the US, while Dragonball: Evolution... not so much. Now, CTHD would be considered an international film, but the premise that non-white actors is less of a draw isn't a very sound argument. When the movie doesn't really stay true to the source material and the interpretation can be considered a bust, a lot of people, including the source material fans, will lose interest in it.

Like Seto Kaiba's examples, I'd imagine that ALL of the fans would cry "bloody murder" if an Asian actor was cast as Batman or if a black actor was cast as Superman. It's just not staying true to the source.

Now, regarding The Last Airbender, I only ever watched a few of the episodes, so I don't really know much about it, but from what I saw, it seemed to me that the vast majority of the characters are of some Asian ethnicity, southern, eastern, whatever. The creator is Korean, if I recall correctly, so I'd assume that the characters are intended to be Asian unless it was stated otherwise in the series. I'm assuming that they don't flat out state every character's ethnicity in the show, but rather just allow people to view the characters as being whatever feels comfortable for the viewer. The character designs do seem to be racially ambiguous though, even if the names are not.


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## MartialHorror (May 2, 2010)

Crouching Tiger is a bad example because it started a short "Chinese cinema" craze that lasted for like a year. Other good HK movies came out around the same time, and made no money. 

As I said, you guys are overanalyzing this. If it racist, blame the American public for not supporting Asian films. Not the filmmakers, whose only concern is to make money. ESPECIALLY Shyamalan, whose last few films underperformed.

Look, example, at Jackie Chan. The only movies that do well in the U.S anymore have Owen Wilson or Chris Tucker. When he tries to go solo, the films usually flop. 

Jet Li's "Unleashed", despite being a fine film, underperformed as well.

Who else is there? Robin Shou left the industry long ago, and I dont think anyone- Save Harold(from Harold and Kumar) has left any kind of impression.

Edit: To add, studios are left with the burden of trying to decide what will make money. Asian-oriented movies continue to flop in the U.S, so they wont use Asians. Will whites guarantee success? Probably not. 

If whites benefit anything, its that if it was an all Asian cast, casual filmgoers might think it's subbed/dubbed, and avoid it. But no single thing guarantees success, but one single thing can damn it. So while I disagree with them, I sympathize with why they're doing it.


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## Ms. Jove (May 3, 2010)

FFLN said:


> The creator is Korean, if I recall correctly, so I'd assume that the characters are intended to be Asian unless it was stated otherwise in the series.



These are the creators of the show, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko:


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## Buskuv (May 3, 2010)

Jove said:


> These are the creators of the show, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko:



Those men are whiter than I am.

Case closed.


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## CrazyMoronX (May 3, 2010)

Who cares? Time for people to grow up.


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## Velocity (May 3, 2010)

MartialHorror said:


> Look, example, at Jackie Chan. The only movies that do well in the U.S anymore have Owen Wilson or Chris Tucker. When he tries to go solo, the films usually flop.
> 
> Jet Li's "Unleashed", despite being a fine film, underperformed as well.



That's really annoying for me. I've noticed that a lot of non-American actors and directors do better when they don't try to please America with their work. Little Big Soldier was a film Jackie Chan made very recently, for Chinese cinemas, and it's far better than anything he made over in America recently. Same goes for John Woo. Red Cliff was incredible, a film he made for China, yet everything he has made for American audiences have been steadily worsening. Let The Right One In was an amazing film, but all America has done for it is develop a remake because the film wasn't American enough. I could reel off tonnes of British films, too, that underperform simply because they were made for British audiences and not Hollywood.

It's very annoying, to say the least.


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## MartialHorror (May 3, 2010)

Lyra said:


> That's really annoying for me. I've noticed that a lot of non-American actors and directors do better when they don't try to please America with their work. Little Big Soldier was a film Jackie Chan made very recently, for Chinese cinemas, and it's far better than anything he made over in America recently. Same goes for John Woo. Red Cliff was incredible, a film he made for China, yet everything he has made for American audiences have been steadily worsening. Let The Right One In was an amazing film, but all America has done for it is develop a remake because the film wasn't American enough. I could reel off tonnes of British films, too, that underperform simply because they were made for British audiences and not Hollywood.
> 
> It's very annoying, to say the least.



Agreed, but it's because Americans are weary of foreign films these days. They dont like hearing crappy dubs or reading subs. 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did start a small trend, but it really was the only real success. The foreign films that were released theatrically following that didnt make a lot of money.

They occasionally try again, but as always, it leaves a minor impression at the box office.

Which is why I keep telling fans that if they dont like race changing, they should blame themselves for not making any asian actors into stars(after all, it is the general audiences that make people stars). Not the filmmakers, who just want to be sure they won't lose any money for it.


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## FFLN (May 3, 2010)

MartialHorror said:


> Crouching Tiger is a bad example because it started a short "Chinese cinema" craze that lasted for like a year. Other good HK movies came out around the same time, and made no money.



I have to admit, I never watched it in theaters. I think I saw it on DVD maybe a year or two after its initial theater release. I'm sure that people probably viewed the other HK movies that came out around that time as more of the same, which may have "over-saturated" the niche that CTHD made. I typically don't make it a point to watch movies that I feel will be cliched, and at that point I had seen quite a few Chinese movies, although CTHD had the best production quality and marketing.



> Look, example, at Jackie Chan. The only movies that do well in the U.S anymore have Owen Wilson or Chris Tucker. When he tries to go solo, the films usually flop.
> 
> Jet Li's "Unleashed", despite being a fine film, underperformed as well.



For the most part, unless someone is an avid martial arts film fan, I don't think movie-goers really go for the movies that they feel will just be more of the same cliche storyline that starts with one martial arts action scene and ends with a multiple martial arts action scenes. I'm basing this assumption on how I feel about it though, since these types of films usually don't focus on the story and character development as much as it does on the action. Having a big-name martial arts movie star on the cover is a huge indicator of the genre, and some people may have grown tired of it over the years or had no interest in it. At least with Jackie Chan, viewers will assume that they'll get some comedy with it, so that may be a draw for comedy fans.



> If whites benefit anything, its that if it was an all Asian cast, casual filmgoers might think it's subbed/dubbed, and avoid it. But no single thing guarantees success, but one single thing can damn it. So while I disagree with them, I sympathize with why they're doing it.



I'm sure that most people understand the reasons why they casted the way that they did, even if they disagree with it. The main gripe that most fans have is when a series that they know is taken and re-envisioned, and it does not stay true to the source. This seems to happen a lot when re-envisioning Asian IPs, and what most people here are probably familiar with, Japanese IPs. Street Fighter? Most people view the main character as being Ryu, but they decided to change that to Guile instead. Result? Major bomb. I don't even remember if the actor for Ryu was actually Japanese or even Asian. I just remember Ryu getting shafted by Guile. DB:E has already been mentioned. Mortal Kombat casted the characters correctly and stayed fairly true to the source, and that was considerably more successful than either one of the above despite the weak story and cliche scenes.

I'd actually like to see the Tekken movie released nationwide in the U.S. Characters seemed to have been casted well, and the gritty atmosphere seems appropriate.

Thanks for the info Jove. Now, I think I remember where I got that bit about the creator being Korean from.


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## Ms. Jove (May 3, 2010)

FFLN said:


> Thanks for the info Jove. Now, I think I remember where I got that bit about the creator being Korean from.



It's not unusual,. I've seen a few people refer to _Avatar_ as a "Korean show" due to the fact that it was physically animated by Korean Studios (Dr Movie, JM), and that Mike and Bryan allowed the Korean animators a lot of autonomy and creative input. Also, some animators came to work on the show in America.


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## MartialHorror (May 3, 2010)

FFLN said:


> I have to admit, I never watched it in theaters. I think I saw it on DVD maybe a year or two after its initial theater release. I'm sure that people probably viewed the other HK movies that came out around that time as more of the same, which may have "over-saturated" the niche that CTHD made. I typically don't make it a point to watch movies that I feel will be cliched, and at that point I had seen quite a few Chinese movies, although CTHD had the best production quality and marketing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I do agree that that is probably why martial arts films dont do well anymore, but in all honesty, most movies are cliched. 

From "Twilight" to "Clash of the Titans", almost every mainstream movie is cliched. Even the "Avatar" show isnt above them, so I dont know if that is a great argument.

But the reason why there are no major Asian stars in the U.S still comes down to the viewer. 

Street Fighter flopped probably because it was a bad movie. I mean, the Mortal Kombat movie wasnt that faithful and that was a hit(and also released near the same time as SF). DBE flopped due to negative word of mouth, but most of all, Dragonball was just a thing of the past. If it got released 10 years ago, Im sure it would've been a smash hit.

People are more interested in Naruto or Bleach these days. 

As for "Tekken", that will be a flop because it looks awful just from the trailers(maybe enjoyable, but awful) and fans are going to be irked cause they're changing the story/characters. Plus, they dont seem to be advertising it a lot. 

But think about this: "Avatars" target audience is kids, and kids dont usually know or care much about race. I never even realized that Godzilla or Dragonball were originally done in Japanese. 

Only the older audiences notice that kind of thing. Plus, once again, there is a difference between changing the source material and stretching the race issue. If they changed the characters and plot, I'd understand. 

But in a show where race in general is ambiguous(although Avatar is more understandable than let's say....Dragonball), I think they're overreacting. 

Im more concerned with personality, attitude and acting. my problem with Goku in DBE wasn't that he was white. It was that he acted like a generic high school kid, which wasnt Goku at all.

To end this, once again, if you're pissed that they're using white actors in this film, then all you have is yourself to blame for not allowing any Asian stars to flourish. Movies exist to make money.

Edit: For the record, I am a bit bugged on some of the casting. Like the guy who plays Iroh. He's a good actor, but looks NOTHING like the character. He should be more hefty. Hell, De Niro would be a closer choice.

Although in personality, Chow Yun Fat might be pretty good if he gained weight.


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## Cel (May 3, 2010)

Just STFU and watch the movie. Kthx No one with a life cares about your pointless whining.


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## The Duchess (May 3, 2010)

I think it's being made a WAY bigger deal than it actually is. Yes, it would've been better if Shyamalan had casted actors that were closer to the race of the show, but the fact that he didn't doesn't mean that the movie won't be well made or won't have good acting.

The boycott people are organizing against it is kind of extreme IMO. Fans can't always get exactly what they want when it comes to film adaptations, yanno?


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## stab-o-tron5000 (May 4, 2010)

The Duchess said:


> I think it's being made a WAY bigger deal than it actually is. Yes, it would've been better if Shyamalan had casted actors that were closer to the race of the show, but the fact that he didn't doesn't mean that the movie won't be well made or won't have good acting.
> 
> The boycott people are organizing against it is kind of extreme IMO. Fans can't always get exactly what they want when it comes to film adaptations, yanno?



This is something I actually posted in a thread over at the cracked.com forums about . In that post I also used "The Last Airbender" as an example, so I'm just going to copy/paste that post here to try and explain _why_ this such a problem. 


- - - - - - (everything in red is from my post on that forum) - - - - - -


I've already filled about half of  thread with my own personal opinions on this, so I'll try to keep this brief.

Asians already have a difficult enough time getting roles in Hollywood. So it seems a bit dickish that they're not even being allowed to play the roles of _actual fucking asians!_

 wherein the entire "real" MIT blackjack team was almost entirely Asian, yet in the movie, surprise surprise, the main characters are now white and the only Asians are the sidekick characters. 



			
				from that link I linked up there said:
			
		

> During the talk, Mezrich mentioned the stereotypical Hollywood casting process ? though most of the actual blackjack team was composed of Asian males, a studio executive involved in the casting process said that most of the film?s actors would be white, with perhaps an Asian female. Even as Asian actors are entering more mainstream films, such as ?Better Luck Tomorrow? and the upcoming ?Memoirs of a Geisha,? these stereotypes still exist, Mezrich said.



I'm actually pretty tired, so I'm not going to go into a load of detail here, but this happens over and over again. How many Asian actors (Hollywood actors) can you name _that don't know Kung-Fu_?

Ok, that's a trick question. All Asians know Kung-Fu. 

Hollywood has this notion that Asians won't sell. Which of course becomes a self fulfilling prophecy since they're hardly ever even given the chance. This is despite the fact that the single biggest international movie star of all time was arguably

I think someone who's acually had to deal with this personally can probably explain this better than I can. 

This is from an E-mail she received in regards to "", but the point of the email still seems applicable to this thread. 



> ...And yet the producers of this movie thought it would be best to forgo talented Asian kids and cast three WHITE actors in the leading roles! Even with Asian actors in supporting roles and as extras, it sends the message that *?Only white people can be heroes. Asian people can?t save themselves ? they need white heroes to save them.? There are stories about Asian kids who auditioned who now think their race isn?t okay, that they have to be white to get a role.*



 Once again, it's actually in relation to "The Last Airbender", but since this thread seems to be more about discussing the discrimination against Asians in Hollywood and less about whatever movie Mikey Rourke is making, the point of the article still stands.



> When my brother and I were in high school, our favorite class was Drama. While we were rehearsing for the next day's class or participating in a school play or dancing it up at the after party, I don't think there was anything we liked more. During such times, it even surpassed our love of?dare I say it?comics. But we never even entertained the notion of actually pursuing it as a career. Not because we didn't want to, but because we had too much pride to spend our entire lives pretending to be Long Duk Dong, or a Chinese food delivery boy with one line, or a Kato to some Green Hornet. *Or even worse, having our hearts broken over and over going after roles that specifically call for Asian Americans*... ...*only to see them go to white actors. Back in my Drama days in high school, I used to dream of being white so I could pursue acting.*





> The movie "21" (released last year!) was supposed to be based on the real life exploits of some Asian American MIT students. But of course, a Hollywood studio just couldn't bear to put an Asian American in the leading role. Instead the role was given to Jim Sturgess. To add insult to injury, Sturgess' sidekick friends were played by Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira. They're both perfectly capable actors who could've pulled off the role just as well as Sturgess. But Yoo and Lapira were obviously just tossed in as a lame attempt to deflect accusations of discrimination which were sure to follow.
> 
> *Again, let me repeat that this movie was made last year, in 2008. You may think it unbelievable, but things really haven't changed at all since the time Bruce Lee was tossed aside for David Carradine in "Kung Fu." How could this much time have passed and so little progress been made?*


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## MartialHorror (May 4, 2010)

They have the right to be upset. I can see their argument, but they aren't spending millions of dollars to get it made.

As I said, general audiences seem concerned about Asian stars, probably because they presume the movie was made in China or Japan.

I often fantasize about making an Evangelion movie. The only thing that worries me is the cast. An All asian cast gives the impression its an asian movie, which people wont want to see. But turning them white wont help much because Eva takes place in a futuristic-but mostly believable- world where it will seem off if there is a white guy named Shinji. Or worse, a white girl named Rei(as in the U.S, that sounds like a male name). But changing the names is the biggest concern of them all.

So what can be done? Until general audiences begin accepting Asian stars and not associate them with kung fu, we're in a horrible dilemna.


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## Lord Yu (May 4, 2010)

I for one am against the Anglicization of all media. Honestly though, I think I'm gonna sit on the fence on this one as I haven't watched the show nor am I a fan of M Night.


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## Shade737 (May 10, 2010)

Upcoming Movie: 

The last black person alive starring Tom Hanks as the black guy lol.


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