I don’t think I would have been excited for The Last Airbender, the live-action film version of the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, even if I didn’t have serious concerns about the casting. I lost interest in M. Night Shyamalan‘s films after The Village. The initial teaser trailer didn’t get me excited and didn’t convey what made this concept special and different from any other martial arts movie out there. (My husband came up with the simultaneously brilliant and obvious idea that a live-action remake of the TV series opening should have been the teaser trailer.) On top of that, I just didn’t see the point. Avatar: The Last Airbender was already an amazing TV series. I didn’t – and still don’t – see what a live-action movie based on the TV series and covering the exact same material as the TV series in a much shorter time frame than the TV series could gope to accomplish. At best, it could have been a very faithful live-action reproduction of the TV show’s first season, something I have little interest in seeing. The point seems almost moot now, since the vast majority of critics have concluded that the movie is not very good.
But, as you almost certainly know by now, there is a casting controversy, centered around the fact that most of the main characters in a film based on a show steeped in Asian culture are played by Caucasian actors. It’s this fact that has dropped my attitude towards the film from “maybe I’ll rent it or watch it on cable” to “not interested at all.” I find this decision off-putting, disrespectful to the source material, and blatantly racist. Shyamalan, Paramount Pictures, and the film’s other defenders have been twisting themselves into knots trying to argue that this isn’t a whitewash. That if you take into account the secondary and background characters, the casting is actually quite diverse. That the show was set in a fantasy world where neither Europe nor Asia exist. That we live in a post-racial society and should be open to “colorblind casting” – a weaselly little term supposedly meaning that the film’s casting took only the skill of the actors into account and not the ethnicity or skin tone of the character in the source material, but that I have only heard applied to projects where – through some amazing coincidence – the “best actors for the job” all turn out to be White when the original characters were not. None of these arguments speak louder to me than do screenshots of Katara and Sokka – members of the Inuit-like Southern Water Tribe – compared with their live-action counterparts or Paramount’s own casting call for young actors to play Aang, specifying that they are looking for kids who are “Caucasian or any other ethnicity”.
My decision not to see this movie was greatly influenced by an essay on the subject by talented comics creator and fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender Derek Kirk Kim. It’s an excellent blend of point-by-point answer to all of the defenses of the film’s casting as well as a personal response to the issues it raises. Since then, I’ve read other pieces on the issue, including “FacePainting” – which puts the controversy into historical context and includes a lot of pictures comparing the animated characters to their live-action counterparts, and this comic on the subject by Gene Luen Yang.
So where do you stand? Has the casting controversy sapped your desire to see the film too? Are you still going to check it out, despite your qualms about the changes made? Have you seen it already? Could you care less about the race of the actors? Whatever your opinion, and whether you agree or disagree with mine, I want to hear it.
The racial controversy caught my attention, but was lessened in effect for me by two things. First that despite the poor casting call descriptions and the main characters being Caucasian, the secondary cast is Asian and overall the casting diverse. I would think it’s hard in this country to completely exclude Caucasian actors from a movie. And personally I’ve never seen Aang as Asian in the TV show, with his bald head and blue tattoos and quite pale white skin, he looks Caucasian to me. I know it’s all reflective of his being an Air bender, but still. Second, when an actor in question recognizes the difference in himself as compared to the character he’s playing and goes out of his way to alter his appearance or change his behaviors/mannerisms/whatnot for the role, it earns respect with me. (That was Sokka, I believe).
That aside, I was and am only mildly interested in the movie. The preview showed too much of today’s bent towards drawn out fighting scenes, and especially one that was poorly choreographed, for me. I kinda hoped they were just showing the high drama parts, and there was still a lot of substance in the movie to be seen. Plus I rarely rely on critics for opinions as they and I usually differ. But when the worst of the Twilight movies gets a better rating than you and I haven’t anything useful to go off of… yeah, I can pass. Maybe someday on cable.
I have to respectfully disagree. My problem is not with the fact that there are any Caucasian actors in the film. It’s with the fact that all three of the main heroes are Caucasian and even counting every actor individually adds up to a diverse movie, who gets the lead roles carries a lot more weight than who ends up filling out the scene. I do understand that there is not a huge pool of actors of Asian descent in Hollywood, but that’s never going to change a series heavily based in Asian culture can’t even be bothered to cast Asian actors when it becomes a live-action movie. These roles, I might add, were given to relatively or completely unknown actors, so the argument that it’s hard to find an Asian actor in Hollywood is kind of beside the point. This filmed ended up with three White actors in the lead roles because that was clearly what Paramount wanted.
I did see Jackson Rathbone’s comments about playing Sokka, but they didn’t leave me feeling any better about the situation. Usually I do respect actors who are willing to make major changes to their appearances for the sake of a role. (Changing behaviors and mannerisms is part of the definition of acting.) But race is not really a gap that can be crossed so easily. That planned tan doesn’t even seem to have materialized. Imagine how this would look if Rathbone had said that all hee needed was a tan and a new hairdo to play a character of African descent.
I realize the apparent low quality of the movie makes this issue seem moot. But I feel it’s still important to discuss it now, before we end up with a live-action Akira (or any other animated work with non-White lead characters) devoid of Asian actors, except in the background.
Good points. It just doesn’t seem to bother me as much as I see others bothered by it. But when I think about the Star Trek film and how annoyed I was they didn’t use James Doohan’s son to play Scotty… even though that’s a different set of circumstances I think I can understand your side.
Yeah, I never noticed that the main characters were supposed to be asian either. Mostly because of the way they behaved and the fact that they’re… anime characters. They’re very simply drawn and stylistic. Really, I thought the movie people had an interesting idea with the fire nation being all played by South Asian/Middle Eastern actors. (I mean maybe then the water nation could all be first nations, earth could be all east asians, and then the air tribe could be european/caucasian, or something else) But… then they didn’t do that for anybody else. So we wound up with all the bad guys being played by south asians with their dark skin. So… all the villains have dark skin. Unfortunate implications, much?
It’s not enough to ruin my desire to see the movie, if it had been a good movie/adaptation then I probably would have gone to see it. But it hasn’t gotten good reviews, I’m not THAT huge of a fan of the TV series, and in the summer I just don’t really feel like going to movies much at all.
So it’s a pass for me, but mostly for other reasons.
I think I would have felt a lot more inclined to see a movie cast the way you suggested. I would have been happier with a Chinese or Tibetan actor playing Aang, but some degree of diversity in the main cast beyond the villains would have been welcome and much more reflective of the show’s concept of the four separate nations with their differing cultures and ethnicities.
I think it’s clear by now that I am a pretty huge fan of the show and I’m surprised to see that the fans of the show seem just as unhappy with the film as the critics do. I realize that existing fans can sometimes be the toughest critics of a new telling of their chosen fiction, complaining about anything that differs even slightly from the soure material. But even the people who shaved their heads bald to paint blue arrows on their foreheads seem to have pretty legitimate beefs. The fact that the pronunciations of Sokka’s name has reportedly changed from “Sock-uh” to “Sew-kuh” makes me wonder whether anyone involved with making this momvies even bothered to watch the TV series.
“he fact that the pronunciations of Sokka’s name has reportedly changed from “Sock-uh” to “Sew-kuh””
I hadn’t heard of that. If it’s true then I’d be more upset too.
-Jennifer
I haven’t seen all of the episodes of Avatar, but I’ve seen quite a few, and I never interpreted the characters as being Asian. Yes, they live in an Asian-inspired world. But culture =/= ethnicity.
When I’m deciding what race a cartoon character is, I don’t go by what sort of culture they are from or what clothes they wear…because I don’t care about that, and because as I said, culture =/= ethnicity. I go by what they *look* like. And to me, all the main characters in Avatar look somewhat racially ambiguous, but I feel like each of them has traits that tip the scale towards “Caucasian” for me. Katara and Sokka, for instance. Yes, they have caramel skin and dark hair. But white people can have caramel skin and dark hair too…ever seen a Southern Italian? Or a Greek person? But they both also have something that Asian people absolutely *do not* have–big, bright blue eyes. Therefore, in my opinion, they cannot possibly be anything other than white. This makes logical sense to me, because in the real world it is possible to have a white person with caramel skin, dark hair, and big blue eyes, whereas it is not possible to have an Asian with blue eyes, short of a genetic mutation. Let’s look at Aang. Yes, his hair is dark and his eyes are brown/black. But these traits are not exclusive to Asians–whites can have them too. For Aang, the thing that tips the scale towards “white” for me is his very pale skin and how large his eyes are. If Sokka and Katara had both had smaller, brown eyes, and if Aang had smaller eyes and somewhat darker skin, then I would have felt with certainty that the characters were Asian. But as it is, the cartoon blends traits from Asians and whites in an ambiguous way, so I am forced to make whatever decision feels most logical to me when I am deciding their races. And what I concluded was that they are white.
If the creators had wanted us to conclude with certainty that these characters were Asians, then why not make a deliberate effort to make them *look* Asian? Other cartoons have shown us that it is possible for cartoon characters to “look Asian” without being racist at all. Take Gargoyles for instance–Dr. Jay Sato is unmistakably Asian. So are the human characters from the episode “Bushido.” Another example would be “The American Dragon.” Jake Long and his family all look unmistakably Asian.
Where will you stand when there are other cartoons made into live action movies, when the appearance of the characters and their culture is in even greater conflict? Take Naruto, for instance. I don’t know if you ever watched it but it’s a pretty good show. Naruto takes place in a clearly Asian world. But yet virtually all of the main characters look like white people. Naruto himself has pinkish skin, blonde hair, and big blue eyes. I suppose if someone wanted to make a live-action movie out of Naruto, they could get a really pale asian kid and dye his hair and put him in blue contacts. But that would just look distracting. Naruto *looks* like a white person so he should be *portrayed* by a white person. If they ever made Naruto into a live action movie and cast an Asian as Naruto, I’d find it disturbing. Just as I would have found it disturbing if Avatar had been cast with Asian actors in all the main roles…because they just don’t look like Asians to me.
Having said all that…I still think the kids that they cast for those roles were poor choices. When I look at screenshots of the characters, I feel like each of these characters has a face that reflects certain personality traits. Aang’s face reflects playfulness, but also wisdom and peace. Sokka’s face reflects impishness and humor. Katara’s face suggests a sort of wonderment. I felt like they should have chosen kids whose faces reflect these personality traits. When I look at Noah Ringer as Aang, for instance, I see a serious kid with fat, jowly cheeks who…just. isn’t. Aang. When I look at Sokka and Katara, I feel that they were casted with similarly poor choices. None of these kids seems to reflect the “essence” of the characters they are supposed to play.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I think something we can probably agree on is that the four nations in Avatar are intended to be different ethnicities, whether you see them as analogous to real world ethnic types or not. It would have been great if the movie had made some effort to reflect that in the casting choices. But as Aldrius notes, it ends up being Caucasian heroes fighting South Asian villains. With some Asian background characters for good measure.
I’ve only seen a few episodes of Naruto so I’m hardly an expert. From what I have seen, I think the show is a little more fanciful with its depictions of character appearance than Avatar is. Sakura has pink hair and my limited viewing of the show has not given me any indication it isn’t her natural color. I’m not sure how I would cast a live-action Naruto if i had to, but I think I would use Asian actors where the character’s appearance allowed for it. I personally don’t consider large eyes to be an indication that a character is not Asian, as I’ve seen plenty of anime where nearly all of the characters and all of them are clearly identified as Japanese or of other Asian heritage.
It might be impossible to find an Asian actor who looks like Naruto, but it would not have been hard to find actors who looked like Katara and Sokka who were of the ethnicity their appearance and culture suggests they might be.
On subject of eye color–Zuko and the rest of the Fire Nation have gold/yellow eyes. No such people of any ethnicity (to my knowledge) in real life have eyes of those color. Where do you stand on that?
Regarding the characters looking white/ambiguous both in Avatar and anime in general, I recommend reading Matt Thorn’s essay “The Face of the Other”:
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html
Well said.
If the various nations in Avatar had all been portrayed by people of different races (not just slightly different elasticities, but wholly different races altogether) in that cartoon, I think that would have been pretty cool. That’s probably one of my few complaints about Avatar. You don’t see any black people running around. Nor do you see any Nordic-looking white people–no red hair, no blonde hair. All the skin tones range from pale to medium, and all the hair colors are pretty much the same (black or brown).
I think a little bit more color in the show would have been nice. Ah well, it is still a great show.
I think the reason you don’t see black or white people in Avatar is because the world is inspired entirely by Asian culture, and thus, excludes people of non-Asian descent (in the same way that worlds inspired by ancient European culture exclude other people of color).
That said? A cartoon with a world inspired by African culture and populated entirely by people of African descent–while paying the same amount of research and respect into the culture as Avatar did–would be the coolest thing ever.
A good friend of mine actually suggested something like this a while back. I think it would make for a wonderful show. I loved Avatar and thought that it went far deeper into Asian culture than most Western shows inspired by animae do. But so much animation is looking to Japan for inspiration right now. There’s a huge wealth of untapped potential in other world cultures – African cultures being a big area that hasn’t been addressed much in animation – and a unique source of inspiration like that would really help a new series stand out.
When I first heard about the movie, I was rather excited for it. Sure, it probably wouldn’t be *great*, but as a huge fan of the show I was fully intending to give it a shot – and as I imagined what it would be like, an intriguing thought hit me: this would be a rare example of a movie – a hopefully successful movie – with all non-Caucasian main actors. It never even occurred to me that they *wouldn’t* try to get Asian and Native American actors for the main roles. Obviously naive of me, but I’ve never felt there was *any* ambiguity about what real-world ethnicities the people in Avatar were meant to be analogous to. That they aren’t drawn with exaggerated ethnic features just made me love the show more, since it contradicts the myth that Caucasians have a monopoly on physical diversity.
So when I heard about the casting… yeah, cautious but strong interest in the film changed to actively boycotting it. Paramount and others’ various token and unconvincing attempts to defend the decisions helped in that regard as well. I still don’t see much “generic-ness” in the show’s characters, and even where I do, I find it extremely short-sighted (and, dare I say it, racist) that a character with a “generic” race should be assumed white by “default”. I don’t need my main characters to be white to like them, and I don’t appreciate this casting’s assumption otherwise. I refuse to support decisions made under that mentality, whether it was conscious or subconscious on the part of those responsible.
On the other hand, based on most of the reviews I’ve seen so far, the whole debacle has probably saved me from wasting my money.
I am of the opinion (I think shared by some other people here) that I would not have minded if Aang was played by a Caucasian actor, as long as Sokka and Katara were not. I would not have minded in Sokka and Katara were played by Caucasian actors, as long as Aang was not. I wouldn’t have minded if none of them were Caucasian, as long as Aang was one ethnicity and Katara and Sokka were another. But to have all three main characters, from two vastly different ethnicities/societies/nations, all played by Caucasian actors? That’s not cultural diversity… it’s cultural homogenisation of the worst kind.
I have been watching the TV series of Avatar even before the movie came up. I was expecting that I will see something different in the movie version of the series. I was quite disappointed with it because it is the very same thing that I have watched from the TV series. I’m kinda hoping that they will add something to spice up the movie compared to the TV series. Seeing this I have lost interest in watching the movie that time. I don’t have any problems with the casting in the movie, I believe that they have given justice to the role that they played.
Katie Smith
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