Air Bender!

[JiuJitsuNation]

I'm taking all my students to see it this friday!

[Lupin1]

I've been obsessed with Avatar since it came out 5 years ago. It was an awesome show, so I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. In fact, Avatar is what got me interested in starting karate again.

[sensei8]

My family and I are going to watch it. I love it that the star of Airbender is an ATA black belt.

[isshinryu5toforever]

I've been too involved in the political discussion surrounding the movie to support it by going to see it in theaters.

[GeoGiant]

I've been too involved in the political discussion surrounding the movie to support it by going to see it in theaters.

Bang, you got my attention!

I'm not a big movie guy and on occasion when i watch a movie its at home so forgive me if I'm out of the loop... what is the political discussion? After reading your post I watched the movie trailer and looked on google news and i didn't see anything that would raise debate.

[Lupin1]

Just google "racebending". I'm not too concerned about it, personally, but some people are really upset about it.

[JiuJitsuNation]

I mean really? The movie is gonna be saweet! I could care less. People have nothing better to do. Memoirs of a Geisha remember that? Chinese girl playing Japanese. What difference does it make. They felt she was the best for the job. ugh.

[isshinryu5toforever]

It has nothing with people simply having nothing better to do. It's a real issue. The world the original series was set in was based off of Asian and Inuit cultures. All the writing is done in traditional Chinese characters, the costuming is distinctly taken from Korea, China, and Japan, and the nations themselves represent their Asian/Inuit counterparts. This was an opportunity for Hollywood to do something different. To honor the representation of cultures in the same, highly accurate fashion of the series, and they passed it up to try to sell movie tickets. It would be like white-washing the cast of Roots. Imagine the backlash!

As far as Memoirs of a Geisha, there was a similar problem with that film among the Asian acting community. I'm not an actor, but I wish they had done one of two things: made the movie in Japanese, or chosen Asian-American actors who didn't have accents. Being quasi-Asian just for cosmetic purposes is a bit insulting, and it helps spread the stereotype that all East Asian people just look the same, and they're interchangeable.

[Lupin1]

It has nothing with people simply having nothing better to do. It's a real issue. The world the original series was set in was based off of Asian and Inuit cultures. All the writing is done in traditional Chinese characters, the costuming is distinctly taken from Korea, China, and Japan, and the nations themselves represent their Asian/Inuit counterparts. This was an opportunity for Hollywood to do something different. To honor the representation of cultures in the same, highly accurate fashion of the series, and they passed it up to try to sell movie tickets. It would be like white-washing the cast of Roots. Imagine the backlash!

As far as Memoirs of a Geisha, there was a similar problem with that film among the Asian acting community. I'm not an actor, but I wish they had done one of two things: made the movie in Japanese, or chosen Asian-American actors who didn't have accents. Being quasi-Asian just for cosmetic purposes is a bit insulting, and it helps spread the stereotype that all East Asian people just look the same, and they're interchangeable.

I read somewhere that they're basing the people off a variety of cultures. For instance, the Southern Water Tribe is Innuit, and from the looks of shots from the movie online, most of the actors look Innuit. The Northern Water Tribe is based off of caucasion, European culture, which from the arcitecture and the way the northern water tribe people from the cartoon were drawn, seems very plausible. And since Kataara and Sokka's grandmother was from the Northern Water Tribe, it makes sense for them to be more caucasion. They're basing the Air Nomads off Tibetan monks, so Aang probably should look more Tibetan. The Fire Nation will be Indian and the Earth Kingdom will be Chinese. This is an interesting read here: http://www.lastairbenderfans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2631&f=10

[isshinryu5toforever]

That's a very interesting, and thorough analysis. The biggest problem lies with the casting of the main characters, not the extras. I still wouldn't excuse the casting of Sokka and Katara as being purely white. The casting of the entire Fire Nation came under fire (no pun intended) as well. The analysis you posted even said that the Fire Nation in spirit was very heavily influenced by Chinese and Japanese imperialist powers, which would be the pre-dynastic powers in China, mostly the Qin, and the post-Meiji Restoration powers in Japan. That's where the issue comes in.

The costuming might be more Chinese than Japanese, which is a huge departure from the series, but the casting of Indian and Middle Eastern is where people start to take issue. In the series, the darker skinned people were actually the Inuit/hunter gatherer based Southern Water tribe. They were inherently good in the series, and this can be shown by the juxtaposition of Katara and Sokka to just about everyone else. They have significantly darkened the "evil" power, and there has been a correlation shown between the perception of race by young children and the representation of said races in media print or otherwise. The hero is almost always lighter skinned, and the bad guys are almost always darker skinned. It has rubbed off on our culture. I could have bought casting the Air Nomads as being from India, because so much of their religious and cultural views come from Buddhism, but not the Fire Nation.

Thanks again for the analysis you posted. It is an attempt to be very even handed. There are still inherent problems in the politics behind casting, but it's Hollywood, what are you going to do? haha I still don't think it's a waste of time for people to be offended though, because it is something that hits close for many.