My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Katie Smith — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:42:16 +0000

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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My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Supermorff — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:05:55 +0000

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.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Jennifer — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:04:55 +0000

Well said.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Jennifer — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:00:25 +0000

“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

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Jennifer — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:59:13 +0000

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.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Sara — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:17:17 +0000

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.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Anon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:10:04 +0000

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

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Ross — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:07:33 +0000

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.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Anon — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:02:43 +0000

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.

My Last Word On "The Last Airbender"

Rebel — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:42:47 +0000

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.