The latest politically-correct geek-rage controversy involves M. Night Shyamalan's choices for the actors in the new live-action Avatar:The Last Airbender movie.

Now, let us pause for a moment, and remember that this is M. Night Shamalama we're talking about here: the fuckwit who hasn't managed to make a half-way decent movie since the Sixth Sense (and the Sixth Sense was ONLY a half-way decent movie; it was essentially a gimmick movie that was fairly cleverly directed).  What the geeks- scratch that- what EVERYONE ON EARTH should be protesting about is the fact that this mental defective is still being allowed to make films after having had, what, six flops in a row?

I mean, what the fuck do the rage-filled nerds expect, that Shyamalan will be making good choices here? Did they not see The Happening or Lady in The Water? Oh... wait... they probably didn't. Practically no one did. But well, anyways, you get my drift: the point is that no one should be surprised if this movie sucks, and every decision along the way to this movie sucks. You should all have known this movie was going to suck the moment you found out who was tapped to direct.

But now, what's the Nerd-Rage of Tangency about this time? Apparently, Shyamalan has announced the roles of the major actors, and NONE of them are asian. They're all pretty Disney-channel-esque white kids (in fact, one of the white kids IS from the Disney Channel).

Here's their choice for Katara, who's people in the story of Avatar are supposedly "inuit":

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/8468/kataracasting-440x221.jpg


Now, there are certain arguments that can be made either way here, to be sure. Katara, in the cartoon is obviously meant to be very pretty, and that girl they've chosen is certainly very pretty. She has startling eyes, which Katara is also supposed to have. On the other hand, she may be the most caucasian early-teen girl I've ever seen in my life.

And then there's this:

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/8468/zukocasting-440x221.jpg

That's Disney-product Jesse McCartney, a preteen pop-idol, one man boy band, and really bad actor in badly-written syrupy wholesome family-fare shows; and he's supposed to play the ultimate badass of the Avatar story, Prince Zuko.  The villain. Who's practically bald. And scarred. And pretty chinese. And definitely not blonde.

So in short, yes, the Nerd-Ragers have a point, somewhere deep in the middle of all that self-righteous indignation.  Of course, many of them don't give a shit about that point. They are just protesting because they heard "White" and their PC-instinct knew right away they had to be against it.

Never mind that Shyamalan himself isn't white.

Never mind that some of the characters, as drawn, do look pretty white.  I think it would be very hard for them to cast Aang as anything other than a caucasian kid and have it end up looking like Aang does.

Never mind that being Canadian, I have seen some inuit, and believe me that I have NEVER seen a single Inuit who looked ANYTHING like Katara or Sokka.  It might work better, if the point is to actually cast someone who looks like the character (and obviously, that is so NOT the point for the Tangency-ites full of PC-outrage) to find a couple of Maori kids who would have the right body type and facial type.

So yeah, never mind any of that stuff, and never mind that the people screaming with "its racism!" outrage are insufferable little prats full of false offendedness based more on a desperate desire to appear to be racially sensitive than any real concern for anything else, the fact remains, under it all, that the basic point is correct.

This is a BAD casting decision. Characters should fit the concept that they were originally envisioned with. Zuko should be chinese. Sokka and Katara should be.. well, inuit or maori or something, but the point is they should look like Sokka and Katara.

It is always WRONG to change a character's racial features for cheap pointless kicks, which is what this amounts to.

But the real kick in the head, the proof that the Tangencyites themselves are so full of shit on this issue, that they're a gang of pathetic hypocrites, is the fact that they are protesting about this, while they were laughing at and insulting people who were upset at the suggestion a while back that the next Superman movie would cast an Asian as the Man of Steel.  And they were practically pissing their pants with joy at the idea of a black man becoming the next Doctor Who.
So apparently, to them, its horribly wrong to miscast a character with an actor who doesn't even fit the race the character was originally intended to represent, unless that character was originally white. In that case, go nuts. Stupid racist fuckers.

RPGPundit

You know? That is the second time in the last month or two I've seen that picture of the white girl... probably from the same source (related to Avatar).

For some reason I find it faintly creepy. The picture I mean. Maybe the girl too.

Just sayin'.

But: why are we trolling tangency again to have things to talk about?

Yeah, why?

Quote from: Spike;278471But: why are we trolling tangency again to have things to talk about?

Damn good question.

I'm guessing this was meant for the Pundit's forum as this was his blog piece today.

A) Yes, why are you trolling Tangency again?

B) Why didn't you lay the hammer on John and me (and others) when we voiced the same disappointment in this similar thread here?

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;278488A) Yes, why are you trolling Tangency again?

I'm not, I'm repeating a commentary I have heard on there and elsewhere, of outrage over white actors being cast for these (more or less non-white) roles, while they simultaneously express heartfelt wishes for non-whites to be cast into white roles. I find it hypocritical and smarmy.

QuoteB) Why didn't you lay the hammer on John and me (and others) when we voiced the same disappointment in this similar thread here?
!i!

Because to my knowledge you weren't also vociferously and smugly campaigning for Superman to be portrayed as a Asian immigrant or Doctor Who to be played by a Black man or a woman...

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;278503Because to my knowledge you weren't also vociferously and smugly campaigning for Superman to be portrayed as a Asian immigrant...

No need in my opinion.  He's already been played by a Native American.  As a thought experiment, I've toyed with the notion that Superman looks A) human, B) white, and C) male is because the pod that baby Kal-El landed in adjusted his genetic matrix to match whomever found him. As good an explanation as any.

Quote...or Doctor Who to be played by a Black man or a woman...

Not vociferously, and certainly not smugly, but I would be pleased as punch to see the Doctor regenerate as something other than lily white.  My wife wanted to see him as an Indian. The gender switch seems like too much of a stretch, as I assume Gallifreyans have a stable gender identity.

On the matter of Aang looking white in the cartoon, that's a matter of style carried over from Japanese and Chinese anime, where characters defined as Asian in the script are portrayed with huge, expressive eyes.  And, if you really want huge, expressive eyes in the live-action actors, my wife pointed out that there's a huge population of would-be hapa actors out there dying for a role like this.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;278506No need in my opinion.  He's already been played by a Native American.  As a thought experiment, I've toyed with the notion that Superman looks A) human, B) white, and C) male is because the pod that baby Kal-El landed in adjusted his genetic matrix to match whomever found him. As good an explanation as any.Not vociferously, and certainly not smugly, but I would be pleased as punch to see the Doctor regenerate as something other than lily white.  My wife wanted to see him as an Indian. The gender switch seems like too much of a stretch, as I assume Gallifreyans have a stable gender identity.
!i!

That is an awesome theory!  Why have I not heard this theory before!?!  Heads... they will roll I tell you.

Quote from: Spike;278513That is an awesome theory!  Why have I not heard this theory before!?!  Heads... they will roll I tell you.

Taking the idea a little further, when Kal-El reviews the psychic history crystals in his Fortress of Solitude, all of the Kryptonians he sees look human, white, and bisexual because the crystals have adapted to the psychology of his human, Kansas upbringing.

All of this is brought low in canon by the existence of the Daxamites and their distinctly human physiognomy, but in my little re-write of Superman's history...

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaWhy didn't you lay the hammer on John and me (and others) when we voiced the same disappointment in this similar thread here?
!i!

Quote from: RPGPundit;278503Because to my knowledge you weren't also vociferously and smugly campaigning for Superman to be portrayed as a Asian immigrant or Doctor Who to be played by a Black man or a woman...

Well, I didn't know about either of those, so I have no opinion about the particular casting.  (Links, maybe?)  

However, I don't think that every actor needs to be the same race as the character they are playing.  It depends on the work and the other factor.  That said, I do suspect some level of racism if white actors are consistently pulled in to play characters that should be Asian, whereas Asian actors almost never play white characters.  

Regarding Doctor Who -- is there a reason the character couldn't be black-skinned?  I haven't followed the series that much, but as I understood it, he changes his body with every regeneration to have a different appearance.  If he can have different hair color and eye color in a new regeneration, why not a different skin color?  

As for Superman, well, first of all it's a single character.  By parallel, I had no problem with either mixed-race Halle Berry or Caucasian Michelle Pfieffer playing Catwoman.  The original character was dark-haired and light-skinned, but her appearance changed drastically in different versions of the comic, and she has been shown as blond at various times as well.  

In the stories, Superman's background isn't Caucasian.  He is a Kryptonian, and offhand I don't think the Kryptonians are supposed to represent European culture.  In the comics, his appearance has varied a lot. He is consistently dark-haired and light-skinned, which fits with many Asian actors.  I think there's a tendency for many readers to assume that cartoon characters are whatever their majority race is.  i.e. In the U.S., readers consider a character to look Caucasian unless they have dark skin or super-exaggerated eye folds -- while conversely in Japan they consider a character to look Asian unless they have blonde hair.  But really, cartoon images themselves usually don't have the distinctive features that let you distinguish between, say, a dark-haired Latino and a dark-haired German or a dark-haired Korean.

It always amazes how people fail to understand Hollywood.

It also always amazes me how indignant fans get about Hollywood's refusal to spend tens (and even hundreds) of millions of dollars to produce films that aren't marketable.

Whether it's some idiotic desire for political correctness OR some idiotic desire for absolute adherence to the source material, these sort of complaints only illustrate that many people simply don't understand the industry.

Hollywood knows that more white American teens will go see a movie featuring people like them (i.e. white American teens) than will go see a movie featuring Asian teens.  Simple fact.  Stranger still is this fact:  teens in foreign countries will go see a movie with white teens before seeing a movie with Asian teens.

Hollywood also knows it's better to have a shit director with name recognition than a shit director nobody has heard of, and they know they can get Night cheap because he's had a string of flops.  Meanwhile, decent directors aren't going to touch some crap ass movie based on a kid's cartoon with a cast of teenage actors.

Everything about this movie screams "Cash grab."  They'll spend $80 million making it, spend another $40 million marketing it, and hope to recoup it all its opening weekend.  Then it's on to international markets.

Which makes sense.  Because there is no way they could do the source material "right" and also make money.  And if you think Hollywood is about something other than making money, then again, you don't understand Hollywood.

(Also, for all the trash-talking of M.Night -- who I do agree is a shit director --  the #1 highest grossing Horror film of all time is Signs.  The #2 highest grossing Horror film is The Village.  Both from M. Night.)

Quote from: Jackalope;278529Everything about this movie screams "Cash grab."

On this point we're in agreement, and everything else you state follows from this predicate.

The original cartoon wasn't a "cash grab," though, and the disappointment stems from the fact that the live-action treatment hasn't cleaved closer to the creators' original vision.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;278523Taking the idea a little further, when Kal-El reviews the psychic history crystals in his Fortress of Solitude, all of the Kryptonians he sees look human, white, and bisexual because the crystals have adapted to the psychology of his human, Kansas upbringing.

All of this is brought low in canon by the existence of the Daxamites and their distinctly human physiognomy, but in my little re-write of Superman's history...

!i!

I was with you up to the Daxamites.  The Who/at?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;278530The original cartoon wasn't a "cash grab," though, and the disappointment stems from the fact that the live-action treatment hasn't cleaved closer to the creators' original vision.

The creator's original vision probably wouldn't make any money though, so hopefully you see the dilemma.

Maybe it would.  Maybe it wouldn't. The only way to find out is to invest millions and cross your fingers.  People willing to risk millions on unsure things tend to end up in the poorhouse, not in charge of studios.