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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 (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 (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 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=12914&highlight=avatar+airbender)?

!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 (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=12914&highlight=avatar+airbender)?
!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.

Quote from: jhkim;278527Well, 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.

So you have no problem with the casting choices made for the Avatar movie?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Spike;278532I was with you up to the Daxamites.  The Who/at?

Daxam is a cousin-planet to Krypton, where the character of Mon-el/Valor came from (who first appeared in the superman stories, and later became a pivotal character of the Legion of Super-Heroes).  

Daxamites are distantly related to Kryptonians, have the same powers, the same red-sun limitation, but while they are immune to Kryptonite they suffer similar debilitating/poisoning lethal effects with common Lead.

When Superman first met Mon-el, he mistook Mon-el (who was suffering from amnesia at the time) for another survivor of Krypton.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jhkim;278527In 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.

Superman is Jewish.  He was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, both Jews.

They were the children of European immigrants struggling to fit into America, and Superman is very much an expression of their longings and struggles.

It's also worth noting that in an early draft of the Superman story, Superman was not an alien at all -- that was actually a late addition to the story -- and was originally to be the son of the last man on Earth, sent back in time from a distant future.

Quote from: Jackalope;278529Hollywood 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.

While it is possible, I'm rather skeptical of this as an established fact, as opposed to a self-fulfilling prophecy.  First of all, it seems to me that films with black stars do fine -- i.e. Independence Day, etc.  Second, the Hollywood studios come out with close to zero films with an Asian-American cast, outside of a handful of martial arts films with Jet Li and Jackie Chan that have done fine compared to their competitors (i.e. martial arts films with white stars like Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme).  

Can you suggest the studio films that did poorly because of their non-white cast?  The handful of Asian-cast films that I can think of did fine, though that may be because I am more prone to remember successful movies.  For example, do you think that the Harold and Kumar films would have done better if they had suitably-renamed white leads?

Quote from: Jackalope;278534The creator's original vision probably wouldn't make any money though, so hopefully you see the dilemma.

Maybe it would.  Maybe it wouldn't.

I see the dilemma, and, as John suggests above, I suspect that it may be more the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy than manifestation of a truism.

Again, I agree with your assessment that this film is a "cash grab".  But on occasion Hollywood produces films that aren't cash grabs, or at least manage to deviate from the cookie-cutter standard. Pity this film doesn't appear to be one of them.

!i!

Quote from: Jackalope;278540Superman is Jewish.  He was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, both Jews.

They were the children of European immigrants struggling to fit into America, and Superman is very much an expression of their longings and struggles.

It's also worth noting that in an early draft of the Superman story, Superman was not an alien at all -- that was actually a late addition to the story -- and was originally to be the son of the last man on Earth, sent back in time from a distant future.

Ok, that's all fair enough, and is part of the history of the character, but that's not the character as he is known today by millions.

The superman that is part of popular culture is a Kansas farmboy.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jhkim;278541While it is possible, I'm rather skeptical of this as an established fact, as opposed to a self-fulfilling prophecy.  First of all, it seems to me that films with black stars do fine -- i.e. Independence Day, etc.  Second, the Hollywood studios come out with close to zero films with an Asian-American cast, outside of a handful of martial arts films with Jet Li and Jackie Chan that have done fine compared to their competitors (i.e. martial arts films with white stars like Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme).  

Can you suggest the studio films that did poorly because of their non-white cast?  The handful of Asian-cast films that I can think of did fine, though that may be because I am more prone to remember successful movies.  For example, do you think that the Harold and Kumar films would have done better if they had suitably-renamed white leads?

A good example that sinks Jackalope's premise is I Am Legend (2007) which grossed like 257 million in US box office receipts alone (and closed on 600 million when you factored in over seas receipts).

Not only did it excel with a practically non-white cast, it is a movie that was was redone from an earlier white lead, (The Last Man on Earth) Vincent Price.

Quote from: jhkim;278541While it is possible, I'm rather skeptical of this as an established fact, as opposed to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let's assume it is a self-fulfilling prophecy -- which it almost certainly is.

Do you want to risk $100 million on it?

QuoteFirst of all, it seems to me that films with black stars do fine -- i.e. Independence Day, etc.

As long as the black star in question is named Will or Denzel, then yeah.

That's not really the issue though.  Yes, you can bank on some African-American actors. You can even bank on some Asian actors.

But you can't cast Jet Li as the lead in Avatar, because Jet Li is like 40 or something.  You have to cast someone young.  Which means someone unknown.

Which brings us to the second point:

QuoteSecond, the Hollywood studios come out with close to zero films with an Asian-American cast, outside of a handful of martial arts films with Jet Li and Jackie Chan that have done fine compared to their competitors (i.e. martial arts films with white stars like Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme).

First of all, almost NONE of the movies you are thinking of are produced in Hollywood.  they're produced in Hong Kong by Asian producers, and then distributed by American studios.

Second, other than the Rush Hour movies, almost none of Chan's movies have broken $50mil in the US.  He has his fans (I'm one), but he lacks widespread appeal.   And he's practically a household name!

Third, as you've noted, Hollywood studios don't come out with a lot of all-Asian cast films.  You know what that means?  It means studios don't have a list of bankable Asian actors.

QuoteCan you suggest the studio films that did poorly because of their non-white cast?  The handful of Asian-cast films that I can think of did fine, though that may be because I am more prone to remember successful movies.  For example, do you think that the Harold and Kumar films would have done better if they had suitably-renamed white leads?

Dude, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle -- which was brilliant -- cost $9mil to make and grossed $18mil.   Meanwhile Dude, Where's My Car -- which sucked -- cost $13mil to make and grossed $46mil.

You do the math.  Before they hit the screen, H&K  and Dude? were pretty much indistinguishable from each other.   Both screwball Stoner/Slacker comedies.  One of them was really good and had Asian leads, one was really bad and had white leads.  The good one got a 2:1 return on the investment,  the bad one got 3.5:1 returns.

Is Ashton Kutcher that appealing?  Or do audiences stay away from minority cast films? I don't know.

You want to risk $80 million on it?

Quote from: CavScout;278547A good example that sinks Jackalope's premise is I Am Legend (2007) which grossed like 257 million in US box office receipts alone (and closed on 600 million when you factored in over seas receipts).

Not only did it excel with a practically non-white cast, it is a movie that was was redone from an earlier white lead, (The Last Man on Earth) Vincent Price.

That's actually a horrible example, because I Am Legend starred one of the most bankable actors on the planet: Will Smith.    Will Smith is, in fact, so popular you could film him reading the phone book, put it in theaters, and still make a few million dollars.

Will Smith worked his ass off to get where he is.  Part of Will Smith getting roles like that stems from a) a successful music career, b) a hit television show, and c) a series of roles in small independent features (such as the incredible Six Degrees of Seperation,whereWill plays a gay street hustler) where he demonstrated a proven ability to act.

Keep in mind, this Avatar movie will star KIDS.  In other words: more or less complete unknowns.  I'm sure Hollywood would love to cast a hot, bankable young Asian male in the lead...but I can't name one.  Can you?

Actually, I'll bet Hollywood would love to cast Will Smith in the role.  All the Avatar fans should be happy that the studio didn't decidedto age all the character by ten years so they could stock it with Nameable Actors.

No one is saying that a movie with minority leads can't succeed.  But the reality is that a movie starring complete unknowns is less likely to succeed than a movie with a built-in audience (i.e. Star Power).  And a movie with unknown minority leads is less likely to succeed with kids than a movie with unknown white leads who at least look like the audience.  Since this is going to have to be a big budget film, the studio is already taking a HUGE risk with unknown leads.

What possible reason could they have for taking that sort of risk?  Do you think the average tween who watches this cartoon (and they are the target audience, not us 30 year old adolescent types who still watch cartoons) really cares?  Or even realizes that Aang is Asian?  

Who here is really so delusional and living in a bubble that they believe that the average kid who makes Avatar a hit knows all this obscure crap people keep babbling on about regarding the conventions of Japanese animation?  I think the average American kid sees these characters with brown hair, slight tans, and big round BLUE eyes as white.

Looking at the pictures, I think they did a decent job of casting.   I don't know if these kids can act (most kids can't, since quality acting generally requires life experience to draw emotional reality from), but to my untrained eye they look the parts.  The girl and the kid playing the villain in particular.

Quote from: Jackalope;278557Dude, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle -- which was brilliant -- cost $9mil to make and grossed $18mil.   Meanwhile Dude, Where's My Car -- which sucked -- cost $13mil to make and grossed $46mil.

You do the math.  Before they hit the screen, H&K  and Dude? were pretty much indistinguishable from each other.   Both screwball Stoner/Slacker comedies.  One of them was really good and had Asian leads, one was really bad and had white leads.  The good one got a 2:1 return on the investment,  the bad one got 3.5:1 returns.

Is Ashton Kutcher that appealing?  Or do audiences stay away from minority cast films? I don't know.

You want to risk $80 million on it?

Which one got a sequel again?

Worth Noting:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the top grossing all-Asian feature of all time at $128 million.  That was produced in Hong Kong, and its success has yet to be duplicated.  The very similar Hero is next on the list at $55 million.

The Forbidden Kingdom, produced in Hollywood and starring the two most bankable Asian actors on Earth -- Jackie Chan and Jet Li -- only brought in $52 million.

These are the things Hollywood considers when someone suggests an all-Asian cast.

Quote from: Jackalope;278558Keep in mind, this Avatar movie will star KIDS. In other words: more or less complete unknowns. I'm sure Hollywood would love to cast a hot, bankable young Asian male in the lead...but I can't name one. Can you?

I can't name a "hot, bankable young" white male either. I have no idea who these folks are they've got lined up for Avatar either.

Quote from: Jackalope;278562Worth Noting:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the top grossing all-Asian feature of all time at $128 million.  That was produced in Hong Kong, and its success has yet to be duplicated.  The very similar Hero is next on the list at $55 million.

The Forbidden Kingdom, produced in Hollywood and starring the two most bankable Asian actors on Earth -- Jackie Chan and Jet Li -- only brought in $52 million.

These are the things Hollywood considers when someone suggests an all-Asian cast.

Even good actors (white, asian or black) can't save bad movies.

Quote from: Spike;278561Which one got a sequel again?

Hollywood would love to make a sequel to Dude, Where's My Car.  But they can't, because Ashton Kutcher won't do it and doesn't need to.  If Kutcher was up for it, we'd be on Dude, Where's My Starship? aka Dude, Where's My Car? 5.  But Kutcher hated Dude? and is embarrassed he agreed to do it.  

Meanwhile John Cho and Kal Penn were available and neither one is about to turn down an offer for a leading role.*  Harold and Kumar got a sequel because the first one made money AND because the stars were still available.

* Which, I assume, is why Penn agreed to star in Van Wilder 2: the Rise of  Taj (which I liked, but I like Kal Penn).  Who knows if Penn would be willing to trade a highly visible supporting role on House, M.D. for a leading role in a movie like that now though?

Quote from: CavScout;278565I can't name a "hot, bankable young" white male either. I have no idea who these folks are they've got lined up for Avatar either.

Neither do I, they're relative unknowns.  They might be familiar to the tween-set that Disney Channel caters to.  Until her dad agreed to let that magazine take tasteless photos of her,  I had no idea who Miley Cyrus was either...but I'll bet my 11 year old niece knew of her before that "scandal."

I presume that is why this Jesse McCarthy was cast: because tweens know who he is.  Far from bankable perhaps, but (from a bean counter's POV) better a minor star that may bring in their own audience than a complete unknown that has no audience.  And if it must be a complete unknown, better a complete unknown that isn't challenging.

Sad fact, but many Americans are nominally racist. You should know, since you're practically in the Klan.   While many kids will unthinkingly identify with another bland white kid, present them an Asian kid to identify with and suddenly you're challenging your audience.  You're asking them to identify with someone different than them.  Many of them are up to the task, some are not.

One doesn't risk millions on the proposition that people will rise to your idealistic expectations.  The people in Hollywood that make money are the ones who (rightly, I think) assume the average American movie-goer is a small-minded idiot.

Another factor to consider is this:  An all Asian cast gives the impression that it's an Asian film, which will lead some film goers to incorrectly assume that it is a subtitled film.  You could lose $20 million to that assumption easy.

Quote from: Jackalope;278570Sad fact, but many Americans are nominally racist. You should know, since you're practically in the Klan.   While many kids will unthinkingly identify with another bland white kid, present them an Asian kid to identify with and suddenly you're challenging your audience.  You're asking them to identify with someone different than them.  Many of them are up to the task, some are not.

One doesn't risk millions on the proposition that people will rise to your idealistic expectations.  The people in Hollywood that make money are the ones who (rightly, I think) assume the average American movie-goer is a small-minded idiot.

Well, here's the thing.  There are certainly some set of the movie-going audience with varying degrees of racist bias -- usually subconscious, I expect.  There is also some set of the Hollywood producer crowd with varying degrees of racist bias.  We could go back and forth about how much each of these is.  

Your position seems to be that the producers are generally enlightened types who have no racist bias of their own, but simply are aware of the racist bias in their teenage audiences.  From what I know, I would tend to say the opposite -- that Hollywood studio producers are assholes in general, and more specifically tend to be old white guys with lots of racist assumptions, much moreso than the modern teenager.  Racism is not exactly going away, but it is getting better compared to the fifties and sixties when the older generation grew up.  My best friend from high school is a film writer/director by trade, and hearing about producers through him has deepened rather than dispelled many stereotypes of Hollywood.  

This is not to say that audiences don't have racist bias, but I think the effect of whitewashing comes more from the bias of producers than from audiences.

Quote from: jhkim;278609Your position seems to be that the producers are generally enlightened types who have no racist bias of their own, but simply are aware of the racist bias in their teenage audiences.

My position is that producers are generally aware of the racist bias in their audiences in general, and motivated by profit not by social consciousness.

I also think audiences are smarter than Hollywood gives them credit for, though considering the MASSIVE evidence to the contrary, I would in honesty have to admit this belief is mostly a delusion.

I have no idea where you get the idea I think Hollywood producers are enlightened types who have no racist bias of their own.  I would really love for you to quote whatever it is I said that gave you that impression, but I rather strongly suspect that you simply ascribed the position to me because it's obviously ridiculous and thus easy to knock down.

I could give two shits about the Avatar movie, but the suggestion of a black Dr. Who piques my interest.

Only if the last name was Henry and the first was Lenny.

(Fuck it'd be 10 times better than the guy they have tapped to replace Tennant.)

Quote from: Jackalope;278612I have no idea where you get the idea I think Hollywood producers are enlightened types who have no racist bias of their own.  I would really love for you to quote whatever it is I said that gave you that impression, but I rather strongly suspect that you simply ascribed the position to me because it's obviously ridiculous and thus easy to knock down.

I will reconstruct.  I complained about the phenomenon both of us observe: that casting is whitewashed in general, and in particular there are almost no Asian-American leads in Hollywood movies.  

In response, you implied that I had an idiotic desire for political correctness -- and that the sole reason for this whitewashing is because it is an objective fact that movies with Asian-American leads cannot be sold to teenage audiences.   i.e. The producers' motivation for the whitewashing has nothing to do with their own bias, but only that of their audience.  

If there was some racist bias among producers, then logically that would have some influence on the degree their decisions.  That is, they would whitewash the casting of films more than if they were not racist.  If all of their casting is purely objective and uninfluenced by racism -- then I would say that it is reasonable to call them enlightened and above racism.  If their casting is biased compared to a non-racist point-of-view, then I would say that it is not idiotic to call for some degree of less whitewashed casting.

Quote from: jhkim;278609Well, here's the thing.  There are certainly some set of the movie-going audience with varying degrees of racist bias -- usually subconscious, I expect.  There is also some set of the Hollywood producer crowd with varying degrees of racist bias.  We could go back and forth about how much each of these is.  

Your position seems to be that the producers are generally enlightened types who have no racist bias of their own, but simply are aware of the racist bias in their teenage audiences.  From what I know, I would tend to say the opposite -- that Hollywood studio producers are assholes in general, and more specifically tend to be old white guys with lots of racist assumptions, much moreso than the modern teenager.  Racism is not exactly going away, but it is getting better compared to the fifties and sixties when the older generation grew up.  My best friend from high school is a film writer/director by trade, and hearing about producers through him has deepened rather than dispelled many stereotypes of Hollywood.  

This is not to say that audiences don't have racist bias, but I think the effect of whitewashing comes more from the bias of producers than from audiences.

Yup, I have to say I agree here. I don't think the average teen would have batted an eye had prince zuko been cast as a chinese kid. Nor would the average nerd, from what we can see. And let's face it, the target audience for this movie is not "white christian men age 35-55", its teenagers and nerds.

I also agree that its the movie producers who are responsible.  Its they that are routinely capable of unthinkable acts of idiocy; because only about 2% of anyone involved in the movie industry has any real genius.  The rest are either corporate zombies or fashionistas; the former having to try to suck the life out of anything the people with real talent have made and regurgitate it as pablum, and the latter producing unspeakable atrocious garbage and claiming that its ok, because its "art".

The former are the braniacs who come up with shit like "Oh, hey, I have an idea! That Jesse McCartney is really popular with the girls! Let's make him this Zuko character, even though he's a pretty little aryan and Zuko is supposed to be an ugly scarred chinese kid; its not like any of these preteens will care!"

The latter are the fucktards that come up with equally insulting shit like: "I believe that in the next Batman movie "Batman" should be a black lesbian woman who addresses gotham city's problems by instituting gun control while dealing with her disabled daughter's date rape trauma. AND IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME YOU'RE AN EVIL RACIST!!!"

RPGPundit

Quote from: Nobilis;278617I could give two shits about the Avatar movie, but the suggestion of a black Dr. Who piques my interest.

Only if the last name was Henry and the first was Lenny.

(Fuck it'd be 10 times better than the guy they have tapped to replace Tennant.)

No, it wouldn't.  Picking a black actor to play Doctor Who would have turned out going only one of two possible ways:

1. It would become all about how the Doctor is Black now.

2. It would become all about how It Doesn't Matter that the Doctor is black now.

Either way, you are fundamentally altering a major aspect of a character (the Doctor) for no really good reason aside from Political Correctness. That is in NO way different than getting Jesse McCartney to play Prince Zuko. Except of course that PC-nerds are a gang of hypocritical little fucks who think that ruining a character for the sake of making him white is unspeakable evil, while ruining a character for the sake of making him not-white is somehow a virtuous act that must not be questioned.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;278642Picking a black actor to play Doctor Who would have turned out going only one of two possible ways:

1. It would become all about how the Doctor is Black now.

2. It would become all about how It Doesn't Matter that the Doctor is black now.

Either way, you are fundamentally altering a major aspect of a character (the Doctor) for no really good reason aside from Political Correctness. That is in NO way different than getting Jesse McCartney to play Prince Zuko.

It sounds like what you're saying is that it isn't the casting per se -- but rather what the writers would do if that casting choice were made.  i.e. They'd be obsessed with the casting choice and write material very differently than if the Doctor were white.  That seems possible to me, as I don't know the series or its writers very well.  

A parallel that springs to mind was changing the character of Starbuck to be a woman in the new Battlestar Galactica series.  Many people criticized this as mindless political correctness.  I've seen the first two seasons of the new series, but only distantly remember a few episodes of the original series.  It seemed to me that the character was mostly handled pretty well.  i.e. It wasn't all about how the character is a woman, though that did come up from time to time.

Quote from: jhkim;278628I will reconstruct.  I complained about the phenomenon both of us observe: that casting is whitewashed in general, and in particular there are almost no Asian-American leads in Hollywood movies.

I was responding to Pundit's comments, not yours.  

QuoteIn response, you implied that I had an idiotic desire for political correctness -

Never happened.

Quote- and that the sole reason for this whitewashing is because it is an objective fact that movies with Asian-American leads cannot be sold to teenage audiences.

The primary reason for this "whitewashing" is that there is little to no evidence that movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences.

Notice the very subtle difference between "It is an objective fact that movies with Asian-American leads cannot be sold to teenage audiences" and "There is no evidence that movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences."  One says it cannot happen, the other says it hasn't happened yet.

Maybe movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences.  It's not a proven fact.  Thus it is a risky proposition.

Quote from: RPGPundit;278642No, it wouldn't.  Picking a black actor to play Doctor Who would have turned out going only one of two possible ways:

1. It would become all about how the Doctor is Black now.

2. It would become all about how It Doesn't Matter that the Doctor is black now.

Either way, you are fundamentally altering a major aspect of a character (the Doctor) for no really good reason aside from Political Correctness. That is in NO way different than getting Jesse McCartney to play Prince Zuko. Except of course that PC-nerds are a gang of hypocritical little fucks who think that ruining a character for the sake of making him white is unspeakable evil, while ruining a character for the sake of making him not-white is somehow a virtuous act that must not be questioned.

RPGPundit

Personally I think people like you are just as bad as people who nerdrage over either or... it may be black and white in your world Pundit but I find a lot more gray area's- in life- than black and white. I would guess that you would be correct- in your assumption- that there would be a small vocal crowd of people yelling about points 1, 2 or both. But I'd be willing to bet the vast (see large) silent majority would eventually determine said black Dr. to be worthy based on his acting ability.

I will admit our society, as it is, would make some kind of statement regarding the new Dr being black, but I'll put in there that the implication or impact would not be as big a deal as it would've been even 10 years ago. If anything I could see it being used as a advertising gimmick. There would be a small pique of interest, then people would settle into the new Dr and either love it, like it, hate it or be indifferent.

For the foreseeable future, there will always be small out spoken pockets of people that will argue against anything... and there will always be a large silent majority that usually doesn't give a shit. This closed off little gaming society reacts much more violently, to off beat announcements, than the general public.

But hey, my dream Dr is and will always be Stephen Fry. And he played a gay character in a movie once... don't you know.

Quote from: RPGPundit;278642Picking a black actor to play Doctor Who would have turned out going only one of two possible ways:

1. It would become all about how the Doctor is Black now.

2. It would become all about how It Doesn't Matter that the Doctor is black now.

Either way, you are fundamentally altering a major aspect of a character (the Doctor) for no really good reason aside from Political Correctness.

I dunno, man.  As John suggests, it'd all be in how the writers handle the change.  As evidence, I submit this exchange from the first episode of the revived Series 1 with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor:

   Rose: You're an alien? But you have a Northern accent!
Doctor: So?  Lots of planets have a North.

End of subject.  Sure it got commented on again from time to time, but that was the beginning and end of any real discussion of the Doctor's newfound (and potentially controversial) deviation from Received Pronunciation. I can imagine that good writers and producers could and would handle a change in the shade of the Doctor's skin similarly.

!i!

Quote from: Jackalope;278687Notice the very subtle difference between "It is an objective fact that movies with Asian-American leads cannot be sold to teenage audiences" and "There is no evidence that movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences."  One says it cannot happen, the other says it hasn't happened yet.

Maybe movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences.  It's not a proven fact.  Thus it is a risky proposition.

I say: Mr. Miyagi.



Don't try to tell me it was that whiney little white bitch that was the lead in them Karate Kid movies.  Pat Morita totally OWNED those films.  Remember who did all the REAL ass whuppin? Yeah.

Sorta like with Big Trouble in Little Chinatown... the guy you THINK is the main character is really just the sidekick, and the Hero is the scrawny asian dude.  Only in KK its a fat old asian dude... and its more obvious.

Quote from: Spike;278700

Quote from: Jackalope;278687Maybe movies with Asian-American leads can be sold to teenage audiences.  It's not a proven fact.  Thus it is a risky proposition.

I say: Mr. Miyagi.

I say: Brandon Lee in The Crow.

Brandon Lee brings me back to my wife's contention that there are plenty of young actors out there who fit the bill of being both Asian and Pundy's requirement that they be wide-eyed like in the cartoon.  The word is "hapa", Hawai'ian for "half", and is increasingly commonly adopted by people of part Pacific Island or Asian descent.  For a little primer, here's Kip Fulbeck's The Hapa Project (http://www.seaweedproductions.com/hapa/).

!i!

Damn you Ian, Dman you and your strange button eyes!

I would totally have thought of that (having a Crow shrine set up in my house...not to mention several JO Barr graphic novels in my collection. ) if only I hadn't read some Mr Miyagi love just before posting....

No, no, that's totally cool.  Pat Morita and Brandon Lee are both good examples of how Asian leads carried popular films.  But why haven't more Asian leads caught on like black leads started to in the '80s?  Beats me.  All look same?  That's the usual argument, which, as I understand it, is why hapas are so popular in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean modeling industry.

!i!

Quote from: Spike;278700I say: Mr. Miyagi.

Supporting Character.

QuoteDon't try to tell me it was that whiney little white bitch that was the lead in them Karate Kid movies.  Pat Morita totally OWNED those films.  Remember who did all the REAL ass whuppin? Yeah.

Still, Daniel is the protagonist of the Karate Kid movies. He drives the action, and he is the character that the audience identifies with.

QuoteSorta like with Big Trouble in Little Chinatown... the guy you THINK is the main character is really just the sidekick, and the Hero is the scrawny asian dude.  Only in KK its a fat old asian dude... and its more obvious.

You are correct that Wang Chi is the "Hero" of Big Trouble in Little China, but Jack Burton is the protagonist, the lead (and he thinks he is the hero).  While Wang Chi drives the action, it is Jack Burton that the audience identifies with. We see the story from his perspective.  The movie was also a commercial failure.

Ask yourself:  Who is featured most prominently on the poster for BTiLC?  Jack Burton.

Mr Miyagi may have been intended as a supporting character for the first movie, but he so totally owned it that he was the real reason there were sequels. Don't let the traditional story format fool you, Miyagi was the real protagonist!

As for HTILC, sure, that's why I didn't say 'Wang Chi'. Hero, yes, protagonist no.

If Daniel-san was the real protagonist, why did Miyagi get the last fight in the first movie?  He totally stole the Danny boy's thunder... because HE was the real protagonist.  Its a story of an old dude passing on his wisdom to the younger dude, told from the OLD dudes perspective.

Though, honestly, Daniel was the least white white-boy lead they could have picked.... ethnically speaking anyway.  Otherthan that he was pure whitebread...

Quote from: Spike;278750If Daniel-san was the real protagonist, why did Miyagi get the last fight in the first movie?  He totally stole the Danny boy's thunder... because HE was the real protagonist.  Its a story of an old dude passing on his wisdom to the younger dude, told from the OLD dudes perspective.

He was not the real protagonist, he was the mentor.

The reason Miyagi gets the last fight in the movie is actually fairly obvious.  The wisdom Miyagi was trying to pass on to Daniel was that the truly strong man does not solve his problems with violence.  Remember, Daniel seeks to become Miyagi's student because he thinks that not being able to defeat the bullies makes him weak, and that if he could only kick their asses, he would be confident.  But Miyagi knows that fear and karate only make a beast -- as evidenced by the Cobras -- and that Daniel must learn true courage and come to believe in himself regardless of how he is perceived.

For Daniel we know that he truly wins not at the Karate tournament -- ribbons mean nothing -- but when he can walk away from a fight without being ashamed of himself.

Daniel wins when he doesn't let the Cobras bait him into a pointless fight after the match.  By doing so, Daniel illustrates that he has learned Miyagi's lesson and taken it to heart.  The torch has been passed and now Daniel is the Master -- the master of himself!  No longer afraid to walk away from a fight that he does not need to fight.

Miyagi then kicks the evil sensai's ass because, frankly, we the audience really, really want to see that guy get his comeuppance.  Someone has to kick the guy's ass.

This is a common trope in stories where the hero's journey culminates in the embrace of non-violence, or the rejection of venegance, or some other element that requires a display of mercy to triumph: once the hero has rejected violent means, someone else -- in comedies, its often a female character who has been timid to this point, such as the girl the hero has been trying to get -- takes out the villain.

Another variation on this is the hero who forces the villain to surrender and is going to "take him alive."  The villain pulls out a gun from nowhere and the hero must turn back and shoot him, even though he doesn't want to.  Or the hero's partner does it.

Those sorts of endings are always about satisfying the audiences need to see the villain punished.

You are putting WAAAAAAYYYYY too much work into this.  

Besides, you utterly ignored the whole Crow sidebar, which blows yer shit out of the water, unlike my chain yanking comment from earlier.

Please explain how a half chinese kid can be the lead in a movie where there is no shred of evidence to prove that the character needed to be anything but ethnically white in a movie like The Crow?  He's not the side kick, not the mentor, not the buddy buddy dude... he is the only thing the movie has regarding protagonists, and the only other adult on the side of heroes is black.  With the exception of the kid (Sara) and 'Victim number 2'... aka 'Shelly' there ain't a sympathetic white face in the crowd, and even many of the villians are various shades of 'not white'.

This actually carries over through the various Crow sequels.  In numba two the Crow was some whitish dude with a heavy accent and the main villian was black, in numba three the leads were white, but the rest of the cast of sympathetic characters were hispanic or native american, as was much of the admittedly stupid plot devices of the week.

Of course, particularly numba tree... was straight to the bin ass without a shot in the thousand chinese hells of being a 'hit', and everyone knew it.

Quote from: Spike;278857You are putting WAAAAAAYYYYY too much work into this.

Not really.  I've taken several years of film study classes, took screenwriting courses in college, have read dozens of books on screenwriting (many of which use Karate Kid as an example), and have written several screenplays (they all suck, but I'm getting better with each one).  Analyzing film story elements is something I do for fun, I enjoy it immensely.

That whole thing was actually a breeze to write. Hardly any work at all.

I think what you mean Spike, is that I'm forcing you to think way too hard about this to keep up.

QuoteBesides, you utterly ignored the whole Crow sidebar, which blows yer shit out of the water, unlike my chain yanking comment from earlier.

The Crow is a bad example, for several reasons:
1) Brandon Lee was the son of Bruce Lee, probably the most famous Asian in America (certainly at the time).
2) Bradon Lee's death and its ironic connections to the context of the movie lended an air of mystique and tragedy to the film that created a lot of buzz.
3) The soundtrack of that movie became an instant cultural touchstone.
4) It still only made $50 million.

Brandon Lee had starred in several films before The Crow, starting with a film made in Hong Kong.  He was cast mostly on the power of his father's legacy, none of which were commercially successful (but none were career killing flops either).  His previous film, the run-of-the-mill martial arts flick Rapid Fire, made $14 million.

QuotePlease explain how a half chinese kid can be the lead in a movie where there is no shred of evidence to prove that the character needed to be anything but ethnically white in a movie like The Crow?

Again, he's the son of Bruce Lee.  He had already been in several movies.   Also, The Crow was a pretty low budget film from a then tiny studio (Dimension).  

Here's what they were thinking: We can't afford a really big name, but we can afford this guy who had demonstrable acting skills (3 previous films), was still a relative unknown (get him for cheap), knows martial arts already, and oh yeah, total bonus, his dad is Bruce Lee.

Thats what I love about you, Jack... your amazing willingness to leap to all sorts of conclusions about other people to make yourself feel better about being you.  Its like a plucky little mouse puffing up his chest and declaring victory over the house cat that wandered through the room...

I've taken film studies as well, though mine focused on the history of the vietnam war in cinema. I also am well aware of narrative structure and roles.  I also know quite well who Brandon Lee was, and have, in fact, seen all of his movies... just because I am cool like that.  Not that its hard.

Of the FOUR points you made rebutting the crow: two and three are utterly irrelevant because they had nothing to do with casting, or anything else but demonstrating that the movie was a success. Four is useful for demonstrating your point about racism in the moviegoing culture, though here there is the counterpoint that a movie about a dead guy getting revenge then dying again is a bit grim for American audiences...

Only point number one is relevant, and yet it still manages to fail to address the point: the studios hired an ethnic actor to be the lead in a major motion picture that did not require (in the least. Draven is a pretty white last name... sorta germanic even) an ethnic actor... and then populated the rest of the cast with lots and lots of various other ethnic actors.

We could, of course, further derail this by talking about the careers of Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes and so on... lots of black actors getting top billing in movies these days you know... hell, Denzel's getting the same treatment as Deniro (great actor who's slumming for paychecks...) from most of the industry.

Or would that ruin your perfectly good little theory?

Quote from: Spike;278954Or would that ruin your perfectly good little theory?

I don't think you understand my "theory" at all Spike.

The examples you are giving, the arguments you are making, I don't understand their relation to my position at all.  I don't think you are arguing against my position, because I don't think you know or understand what my position is.

My position, my belief, my theory, call it what you will, is pretty simple:

1) The more money a studio is putting into a project the less risks they want to take.
2) Targeting an all-Asian cast movie at an audience comprised primarily of 6-11 year olds has never been done.
3) Asian leads don't have a strong record of success in America.
4) Consequently, if Disney is going to invest a lot of money in this project, they probably aren't going to make risky choices.

My argument is that the more money in a project, the more likely it is to be whitewashed, because whitewashing is safe.

I don't really see what The Crow has to do with this.  It was a low-budget action/horror movie from minor studio that happened to become a big hit for the company due to a number of factors, none of which was a cast of unknown Asian kids.

So what is your point?   I'm not arguing that Disney couldn't go with a cast of all Asian unknowns, I'm only pointing out that it's a risk because no one has really tried it.  And it might not work.  And that's a lot of money to gamble, especially since whitewashing has a proven track record of success.

I'm not saying it's right or good or enlightened, I'm just saying that's how Hollywood studios think.

Very well, since you want to play stupid, I'll become your enabler.

QuoteMy position, my belief, my theory, call it what you will, is pretty simple:

No, thats what you are saying about this very limited sense of circumstances. Your theory, at least in regards to our discussion in the last several threads was not specific to the race of Aang etc.

Quote1) The more money a studio is putting into a project the less risks they want to take.

That is rather simplistically formulaic. Certainly any investor wants to reduce risk on projects.  On the other hand, excessive risk reduction also reduces profits, meaning there is a balancing act that must be acheived to make scads of money. The movie business is more interested in the 'scads of money' method of profitteering than the 'safe but negligable trickle of profits' method of profiteering, thus explaining all those huge budget flops, in part. To many risks were taken and the soufle collapsed.

Quote2) Targeting an all-Asian cast movie at an audience comprised primarily of 6-11 year olds has never been done.

Outside of asia? Sure.  Then again, prior to the Ring, remaking a Japanese Horror film for American audiences, with an American cast had never been done. Now it's rote.  Prior to the new Terminator movie coming out no one had suggested a terminator movie could work with Arnold... yet now we have Christian Bale and no word of Arnold at all...  Prior to meeting you, I never thought anybody could be so dumb yet managed to write complete words, yet here we are... life is full of new shit.

Quote3) Asian leads don't have a strong record of success in America.

Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee and even poor old Brandon Lee would disagree. Marc Dacascos has made a career out of pretending to be Asian, far more than David Carradine before him ever tried.

The fucking IMPORT market will disagree with you there too. Crouching Tiger was a huge success, better than most European foriegn films do. John Woo only has a career in Hollywood at all because of his work in Hong Kong cinema and the cross-over fans in America.  Hollywood might not be the most innovative place in the world but they smell the money coming out of Asian film markets in America, and they ain't to proud to steal from them... even if that means casting asians in big roles in American films.

Quote4) Consequently, if Disney is going to invest a lot of money in this project, they probably aren't going to make risky choices.

DISNEY might not. Disney is not all of Hollywood, and if you hadn't noticed this thread left 'just Disney' in the dust a while ago. That said, looking at who they've cast (as we all have) I doubt it, but that has more to do with the marketability of THESE kids than their whiteness... which is extreme. THey know THEIR target audience loves these actors.

QuoteI don't really see what The Crow has to do with this. It was a low-budget action/horror movie from minor studio that happened to become a big hit for the company due to a number of factors, none of which was a cast of unknown Asian kids.

It could be argued that the success of the movie has a lot to do with the fact that the actors were by and large unknown, non-whites.  The 'industry' knows that people do get tired of the same crap over and over again, they can see just when people do when their profits start to decline... thats why non-standard fare gets greenlit, to see if its a hit.  

QuoteSo what is your point? I'm not arguing that Disney couldn't go with a cast of all Asian unknowns, I'm only pointing out that it's a risk because no one has really tried it. And it might not work. And that's a lot of money to gamble, especially since whitewashing has a proven track record of success.

My point, insamuch as I care to have one, is that Disney is making this movie, which IS a risk regardless of the color of the cast because it is a 'new thing' and thus a potential money maker.  Its already a risk, so they would be willing to make it even less risky by hiring cheaper, unknown ethic actors.  Instead they have chosen to tap their stable of already known, proven child talent (proven by popularity with their audience, not necessarily acting ability... marketing...) who happen to be white.  The whitewashing is incidental, and may be the result of a more subtle endemic racism (where non-white actors get fewer chances to prove they have the charisma, the audience appeal, of the non-whites), but that didn't drive the casting directly, as you say it has.

But as it stands I disagree with your 'risk averse' theory on the face of it; and the idea that the whiteness of the actors is taken into consideration as a 'risk reducer'...  particularly since white actors, that is KNOWN white actors actually increase the cost of production over unknown ethnics, in particular.


Whew. What a fucked up sentence structure that was. I hope I didn't confuse you too much, with your superior brain and all...

Quote from: Spike;278977No, thats what you are saying about this very limited sense of circumstances. Your theory, at least in regards to our discussion in the last several threads was not specific to the race of Aang etc.

I don't really know what you're going on about Spike.  It's hard to follow your line of argument, because you're basically a howling retard.  You and I probably have very different ideas about what we were talking about.

QuoteThat is rather simplistically formulaic. Certainly any investor wants to reduce risk on projects.  On the other hand, excessive risk reduction also reduces profits, meaning there is a balancing act that must be acheived to make scads of money. The movie business is more interested in the 'scads of money' method of profitteering than the 'safe but negligable trickle of profits' method of profiteering, thus explaining all those huge budget flops, in part. To many risks were taken and the soufle collapsed.

Yeah.  I was trying to keep it simple for you, since you're a simpleton.

QuoteOutside of asia? Sure.

Yes, Spike, Hollywood is outside of Asia.

QuoteJackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee and even poor old Brandon Lee would disagree. Marc Dacascos has made a career out of pretending to be Asian, far more than David Carradine before him ever tried.

Jackie Chan has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite a bit when you take out the Rush Hour movies.
Jet Li has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite bit if you remove Lethal Weapon 4 and The Mummy 3, two movies in which he was not the lead.
Mark Dacascos doesn't even rate an entry at box office mojo, so I have no idea what his average is, but his IMDB entry screams Z-Lister.

I don't know what you think "successful" means, but that's the two biggest Asian stars in America, and they haven't broken the $50 million average mark.

Compare that with, say, Hugh Jackman ($90 million), or god forbid Harrison Ford ($113 million).

QuoteThe fucking IMPORT market will disagree with you there too. Crouching Tiger was a huge success, better than most European foriegn films do.

Better than all foreign films.  Most successful foreign film to date.  It did $128 million, and later attempts to cash in on it did significantly less (Hero did $50 million), and Hollywood's attempt to make their own movie in that line (Forbidden Kingdom) was a flop, and lost $20 million.

Do you get that? Hollywood made a $70 million dollar martial arts action film with incredible special effects, an interesting story, and the BOTH of the hottest Asian stars in America, and it LOST TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS.

QuoteJohn Woo only has a career in Hollywood at all because of his work in Hong Kong cinema and the cross-over fans in America.  Hollywood might not be the most innovative place in the world but they smell the money coming out of Asian film markets in America, and they ain't to proud to steal from them... even if that means casting asians in big roles in American films.

DISNEY might not. Disney is not all of Hollywood, and if you hadn't noticed this thread left 'just Disney' in the dust a while ago. That said, looking at who they've cast (as we all have) I doubt it, but that has more to do with the marketability of THESE kids than their whiteness... which is extreme. THey know THEIR target audience loves these actors.

QuoteIt could be argued that the success of the movie has a lot to do with the fact that the actors were by and large unknown, non-whites.  The 'industry' knows that people do get tired of the same crap over and over again, they can see just when people do when their profits start to decline... thats why non-standard fare gets greenlit, to see if its a hit.

Except that's not really the case.  The cast was actually predominately white.  There is one black gang member, the bad guy's half-sister is Asian, his henchman is black, and the friendly cop is black.  And then there is Brandon, a half-Asian guy who looks white.  The female leads (the girl and Darla) are white, the main villains (T-Bird and Top Dollar) are white, and most of the supporting cast is white.

Sorry dude, I just don't buy it.  I remember when the Crow came out, and I remember why people were talking about it, and race wasn't the reason.  It was Brandon Lee's death, the soundtrack, and the Goth aesthetic.

And again, it was small budget movie.

QuoteMy point, insamuch as I care to have one, is that Disney is making this movie, which IS a risk regardless of the color of the cast because it is a 'new thing' and thus a potential money maker.  Its already a risk, so they would be willing to make it even less risky by hiring cheaper, unknown ethic actors.  Instead they have chosen to tap their stable of already known, proven child talent (proven by popularity with their audience, not necessarily acting ability... marketing...) who happen to be white.

That makes absolutely no sense at all.   There is this massive counter-inutive leap to an outrageous conclusion buried right in the middle there.

Which is:  This movie is already a risk, so they won't increase the risk by putting popular known actors in it.

First of all, it's typical Spike stupidity to suggest something as obviously wrong as "known actors are a greater risk than unknown actors."

Second, there is no logic to "This is already risky, let's make it more so" concept your argument hinges on.  That's just dumb.

QuoteBut as it stands I disagree with your 'risk averse' theory on the face of it; and the idea that the whiteness of the actors is taken into consideration as a 'risk reducer'...  particularly since white actors, that is KNOWN white actors actually increase the cost of production over unknown ethnics, in particular.

By that logic Hollywood shouldn't have cast the very expensive Christian Bale in the lead role in the new terminator (after all, he is KNOWN to people), they should have gone with a complete unknown from a foreign country that would work dirt cheap.

Again, you're a very stupid person Spike.  Astonishingly so.

Jackalope apparently doesn't understand how hot Anime is with kids.  How much they identify with asian culture, even when they are grossly misinformed and inaccurate in those beliefs.   The kids who are likely to go see Avatar as a live action movie have GROWN UP watching anime, and are not unfamiliar with the fact that anime is from Japan (most of it that makes in NA-side) and Japanese people are not white.  The kids likely to see Avatar are NOT happy they are casting all whites in the roles.  They are more likely to be upset with massive changes in the story lines.  In short, this is Disney GROSSLY underestimating its audience.  It will still make money, sure, but they wouldn't lose as much as you say if they cast more asians in it.

Quote from: jhkim;278681It sounds like what you're saying is that it isn't the casting per se -- but rather what the writers would do if that casting choice were made.  i.e. They'd be obsessed with the casting choice and write material very differently than if the Doctor were white.  That seems possible to me, as I don't know the series or its writers very well.  

A parallel that springs to mind was changing the character of Starbuck to be a woman in the new Battlestar Galactica series.  Many people criticized this as mindless political correctness.  I've seen the first two seasons of the new series, but only distantly remember a few episodes of the original series.  It seemed to me that the character was mostly handled pretty well.  i.e. It wasn't all about how the character is a woman, though that did come up from time to time.

You've also got Mos Def as For Prefect in the Hitchhikers movie.  The character did not change in any noticable way beyond skin color.  

I think a black Dr. Who would be great.  There's nothing in Doctor Who's background and history that demands a white actor, beyond the fact that it was made by white people with white actors.  Theres nothign in the actual CHARACTER that demands whiteness.

Quote from: Jackalope;278992Jackie Chan has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite a bit when you take out the Rush Hour movies.
Jet Li has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite bit if you remove Lethal Weapon 4 and The Mummy 3, two movies in which he was not the lead.
Mark Dacascos doesn't even rate an entry at box office mojo, so I have no idea what his average is, but his IMDB entry screams Z-Lister.

I don't know what you think "successful" means, but that's the two biggest Asian stars in America, and they haven't broken the $50 million average mark.

Compare that with, say, Hugh Jackman ($90 million), or god forbid Harrison Ford ($113 million).

I think that's a poor measure to use, because lifetime average gross is dragged down hugely by including someone's small films.  On the box office mojo site, Jackie Chan's stats are low because they're counting back from when he did "The Big Brawl" in 1980, whereas Hugh Jackman they only count from "X-Men" in 2000 -- ignoring his prior Australian works, probably because none of them even got an American theatrical release.  So Jackie Chan's stats are dragged down because his earlier films did better, meriting a theatrical release.  

By their numbers, the average of Jackie Chan's last four movies is $108 million.  The average of Hugh Jackman's last four movies is $65 million.  

Quote from: Jackalope;278992Better than all foreign films.  Most successful foreign film to date.  It did $128 million, and later attempts to cash in on it did significantly less (Hero did $50 million), and Hollywood's attempt to make their own movie in that line (Forbidden Kingdom) was a flop, and lost $20 million.

Do you get that? Hollywood made a $70 million dollar martial arts action film with incredible special effects, an interesting story, and the BOTH of the hottest Asian stars in America, and it LOST TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS.

You're drawing some very broad conclusions here from a tiny handful of examples.  There are plenty of movies that flop without Asian stars.  The Golden Compass lost over $100 million, yet you don't see Hollywood abandoning Daniel Craig as a star, or even Nicole Kidman despite her being in a long string of flops.  

Now, there is a chicken and egg problem here.  You say that few Asians are cast mainly because there is no track record of success for Asian actors.  I suspect that there is no track record of success for Asian actors mainly because they are almost never cast.  To some degree I would agree with you -- lack of Asian stars at the top level (i.e. big-budget movies) reflects lack of Asian stars at the lower levels (i.e. television and low-budget domestic movies).  But that just spreads the blame around.  

The top foreign movies come from Asia, yet you will see European stars cast into Hollywood films far more often than Asian stars.

Quote from: Jackalope;278992I don't really know what you're going on about Spike.  It's hard to follow your line of argument, because you're basically a howling retard.  You and I probably have very different ideas about what we were talking about.

Yeah.  I was trying to keep it simple for you, since you're a simpleton.

If you can't follow my line of argument then it is less likely that you are smarter than me, and more likely you are not as smart as you think I am.

QuoteYes, Spike, Hollywood is outside of Asia.

Wow! You actually agreed with something I've said?! My, the Honor!

Not that you grasped my point, but hey... I'm used to you not being able to keep up.

QuoteJackie Chan has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite a bit when you take out the Rush Hour movies.
Jet Li has a lifetime average gross of $49 million, which goes down quite bit if you remove Lethal Weapon 4 and The Mummy 3, two movies in which he was not the lead.
Mark Dacascos doesn't even rate an entry at box office mojo, so I have no idea what his average is, but his IMDB entry screams Z-Lister.

I don't know what you think "successful" means, but that's the two biggest Asian stars in America, and they haven't broken the $50 million average mark.

Compare that with, say, Hugh Jackman ($90 million), or god forbid Harrison Ford ($113 million).

Mr. Kim covered this far more eloquently than I have. I will point out that you've already demonstrated a willingness to slant the data in your favor quite blatently, not to mention naked attempts to shuffle definitions to suit your whims.  The Rush Hour franchise may be utter ass, but given that its a series of movies with two non-white leads, and its pulled down gangbusters profits for each movie... well, trying to claim Jackie Chan's only worth 50mil is obviously lacking.  Rush Hour 2, for example, grossed 226 million in the domestic market alone.

And I notice you utterly ignore the various, non-white, leading man actors mentioned as well. No glib response about how they are 'essentially white' or some other nonsense?

QuoteBetter than all foreign films.  Most successful foreign film to date.  It did $128 million, and later attempts to cash in on it did significantly less (Hero did $50 million), and Hollywood's attempt to make their own movie in that line (Forbidden Kingdom) was a flop, and lost $20 million.

Do you get that? Hollywood made a $70 million dollar martial arts action film with incredible special effects, an interesting story, and the BOTH of the hottest Asian stars in America, and it LOST TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS.

And with a white leading actor. I get that, I saw it actually.  The amount of money spent making a movie does not indicate quality. See also: Australia.

If you want to compare it's profits though, you'd have to compare it to other films not in English.  You can't quite grasp the relevance of that significant fact, can you?   I mean, if you could you wouldn't be comparing it to an english language film.  And given that a central premise of your theory is that its all about the white faces: Guess what, most european foriegn language films are FILLED with white faces.

QuoteDISNEY might not. Disney is not all of Hollywood, and if you hadn't noticed this thread left 'just Disney' in the dust a while ago. That said, looking at who they've cast (as we all have) I doubt it, but that has more to do with the marketability of THESE kids than their whiteness... which is extreme. THey know THEIR target audience loves these actors.

Quoting Error, Jack. That was MY words.

QuoteExcept that's not really the case.  The cast was actually predominately white.  There is one black gang member, the bad guy's half-sister is Asian, his henchman is black, and the friendly cop is black.  And then there is Brandon, a half-Asian guy who looks white.  The female leads (the girl and Darla) are white, the main villains (T-Bird and Top Dollar) are white, and most of the supporting cast is white.

If you tally up minor characters with single, small, scenes like the pawn shop dude, sure.  If you ignore their place in the film, certainly. There are only three sympathetic characters in the film. Eric Draven (Asian dude), the Cop (Black Dude) and the kid (White dudette).  Mom ain't sympathetic, she's a junkie who all but abandon's her daughter for sex and drugs until the Crow takes a hand. Shelly is sympathetic, but she's on screen for an aggregate of some 30 seconds... and she's dead dead, so that hardly helps.

The bad guys are not sympathetic in the least, and while there may be a few more white faces than non-white, its actually a pretty extreme mix.  Tin Tin gets more facetime and coolness (black dude), an asian is tossed in for no reason at all, and Funboy (white dude), arguably the most complex and interesting of the villians gets utterly written out to the point of being all but unnamed in the film.

Its safe to say that the Crow wasn't cast with an eye to racism, and that perceived audience racism wasn't a factor either.  The movie, now 15 years old, was successful enough, despite expectations, to have given a fairly obvious lie to the idea that a movie NEEDS white faces to reduce risk... which I've already demonstrated is a nonsense argument anyway, and you ignored it in favor of trying to nit pick the percentages of cast members in The Crow.  Are you in full retreat now?  Is that what this is? I mean, you practically lead every post with an utter dismissal of my intelligence, which is usually a sign of victory for me when dealing with your brand of stupidity.  Hell, I wasn't even trying this time, it was just all about poking fun at the solemnenity of your prodigious arguements against Mister.Fucking.Miyagi... of all things.  Nobody uses the Karate Kid to make serious arguments about anything!!!

QuoteThat makes absolutely no sense at all.   There is this massive counter-inutive leap to an outrageous conclusion buried right in the middle there.

Which is:  This movie is already a risk, so they won't increase the risk by putting popular known actors in it.

First of all, it's typical Spike stupidity to suggest something as obviously wrong as "known actors are a greater risk than unknown actors."

Second, there is no logic to "This is already risky, let's make it more so" concept your argument hinges on.  That's just dumb.

You are apparently not a betting man.  If you are holding a hand of cards with nothin' in it, you don't toss extra money in the pot to 'reduce risk'.

So, when faced with a movie that is risky, you don't spend extra money, you spend LESS money.

Its idiot simple, which is why you probably don't get it.  Known Actors are not magic cure alls for chancy movies, they just increase the cost of said movies... thus the risk.  Obviously its not a binary equation, but I shouldn't have to explain that to a person with a functional grasp of reality.  

In this case the cost difference between the white, known, Disney cast and a hypothetical cast of ethnic unknowns is probably pretty small, so its not a huge risk (increasing production costs) to use their known talent (potentially increasing draw).... though of course, Disney does have at a few known, popular ethnic actors in their stable who probably SHOULD be in the movie.

But its not directly about the whiteness, its about the built in fanbase these actors bring.

QuoteBy that logic Hollywood shouldn't have cast the very expensive Christian Bale in the lead role in the new terminator (after all, he is KNOWN to people), they should have gone with a complete unknown from a foreign country that would work dirt cheap.

Except, you know, twenty years of lore showing John Connor as white, a name that comes from predominantly white ethnic crowds.  I mean, sure: John Connor could be some skinny dude from Kashmir who's parents were fans of western naming conventions. Hell, it even makes some sort of twisted sense: people from Kashmir are far more likely to survive a war of extermination by sentient machines than any Americans, and its not like they don't already have that guerilla warfare mindset that Sarah Connor spent twenty years (supposedly) learning and imparting to her son...

In this case we have a reason for the character to be white.  Not a great reason, mind you, but a reason.  Or will you only be happy when there is not a single white face polluting your silver screens?

QuoteAgain, you're a very stupid person Spike.  Astonishingly so.

I practice. Mostly I just read what you write. The process destroys brain cells, giving me an advantage in internet debates. YOU are my secret weapon.

Quote from: jhkim;279160I think that's a poor measure to use, because lifetime average gross is dragged down hugely by including someone's small films.  On the box office mojo site, Jackie Chan's stats are low because they're counting back from when he did "The Big Brawl" in 1980, whereas Hugh Jackman they only count from "X-Men" in 2000 -- ignoring his prior Australian works, probably because none of them even got an American theatrical release.  So Jackie Chan's stats are dragged down because his earlier films did better, meriting a theatrical release.

I agree, but that is how studios make their decision.  

QuoteYou're drawing some very broad conclusions here from a tiny handful of examples.  There are plenty of movies that flop without Asian stars.  The Golden Compass lost over $100 million, yet you don't see Hollywood abandoning Daniel Craig as a star, or even Nicole Kidman despite her being in a long string of flops.  

After the release of Australia, Kidman has been talking about retiring from filmmaking and focusing on other things, and entertainment media is treating her as a sales killer.  Her career is definitely on the downslide.

QuoteNow, there is a chicken and egg problem here.  You say that few Asians are cast mainly because there is no track record of success for Asian actors.  I suspect that there is no track record of success for Asian actors mainly because they are almost never cast.  To some degree I would agree with you -- lack of Asian stars at the top level (i.e. big-budget movies) reflects lack of Asian stars at the lower levels (i.e. television and low-budget domestic movies).  But that just spreads the blame around.

Sure, it's a vicious cycle.  Never claimed otherwise.

The point I'm making is that breaking the vicious cycle requires taking a risk, and that Hollywood is risk-adverse as a general rule, and becomes more risk adverse the more money is on the line.

Which is why I started my comments by saying that people who think that Disney should go with an all-Asian cast for either PC reasons or to please ridiculous fanboys seriously do not understand how decision are made in Hollywood.  They do not understand that the people making these movies would almost certainly be out of a job and financially ruined if they listened to these voices.

QuoteThe top foreign movies come from Asia, yet you will see European stars cast into Hollywood films far more often than Asian stars.

That's because European stars are more likely to speak English fluently.

Quote from: HackmastergeneralJackalope apparently doesn't understand how hot Anime is with kids. How much they identify with asian culture, even when they are grossly misinformed and inaccurate in those beliefs. The kids who are likely to go see Avatar as a live action movie have GROWN UP watching anime, and are not unfamiliar with the fact that anime is from Japan (most of it that makes in NA-side) and Japanese people are not white. The kids likely to see Avatar are NOT happy they are casting all whites in the roles. They are more likely to be upset with massive changes in the story lines. In short, this is Disney GROSSLY underestimating its audience. It will still make money, sure, but they wouldn't lose as much as you say if they cast more asians in it.

I think this is a case of you SERIOUSLY overestimating the understanding of children -- most of whom probably don't realize that the very white looking kids of Avatar with their white voice actors are intended to be Japanese (I myself find it hard to believe, what with the girl being a brunette with blue eyes).

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that the 6 to 11 year olds that make up the majority of the Avatar audience are actually concerned by this whitewashing?

Also, do you understand that to succeed this movie has to appeal to a lot of people who have never heard of Avatar?   Avatar has a viewing base of about 5 million.  Way more than 5 million people have to go see this movie for it to make it's money back.

Quote from: Spike;279172If you can't follow my line of argument then it is less likely that you are smarter than me, and more likely you are not as smart as you think I am.

No Spike, I think I can't follow your argument because their shit arguments that don't go anywhere and don't make any sense.

QuoteAnd I notice you utterly ignore the various, non-white, leading man actors mentioned as well. No glib response about how they are 'essentially white' or some other nonsense?

And you still don't get that it's an irrelevant point, tangential to what is actually being discussed.

QuoteAnd with a white leading actor. I get that, I saw it actually.  The amount of money spent making a movie does not indicate quality. See also: Australia.

If you want to compare it's profits though, you'd have to compare it to other films not in English.  You can't quite grasp the relevance of that significant fact, can you?   I mean, if you could you wouldn't be comparing it to an english language film.  And given that a central premise of your theory is that its all about the white faces: Guess what, most european foriegn language films are FILLED with white faces.

See, this is what I'm talking about.  You make no sense.

What are you talking about?  Forbidden Kingdom was an English language film.

QuoteIf you tally up minor characters with single, small, scenes like the pawn shop dude, sure.  If you ignore their place in the film, certainly. There are only three sympathetic characters in the film. Eric Draven (Asian dude), the Cop (Black Dude) and the kid (White dudette).  Mom ain't sympathetic, she's a junkie who all but abandon's her daughter for sex and drugs until the Crow takes a hand. Shelly is sympathetic, but she's on screen for an aggregate of some 30 seconds... and she's dead dead, so that hardly helps.

The bad guys are not sympathetic in the least, and while there may be a few more white faces than non-white, its actually a pretty extreme mix.  Tin Tin gets more facetime and coolness (black dude), an asian is tossed in for no reason at all, and Funboy (white dude), arguably the most complex and interesting of the villians gets utterly written out to the point of being all but unnamed in the film.

Blah blah blah.

QuoteIts safe to say that the Crow wasn't cast with an eye to racism, and that perceived audience racism wasn't a factor either.

Yeah,sure.  It was alsoa $15 million dollar film from a minor studio that was successful for flukish reasons. But hey, don't let that stop you.

QuoteThe movie, now 15 years old, was successful enough, despite expectations, to have given a fairly obvious lie to the idea that a movie NEEDS white faces to reduce risk...

That's a really hasty conclusion to draw from the success of The Crow, when ticket sales were pretty clearly driven by Lee's death.

Quote...which I've already demonstrated is a nonsense argument anyway,

Maybe in you poor deluded mind, the same deluded mind that convinces you that you make sense on something approaching a regular basis.

Quoteand you ignored it in favor of trying to nit pick the percentages of cast members in The Crow.  Are you in full retreat now?  Is that what this is? I mean, you practically lead every post with an utter dismissal of my intelligence, which is usually a sign of victory for me when dealing with your brand of stupidity.  Hell, I wasn't even trying this time, it was just all about poking fun at the solemnenity of your prodigious arguements against Mister.Fucking.Miyagi... of all things.  Nobody uses the Karate Kid to make serious arguments about anything!!!

I call you an idiot because its the only part of talking to you I enjoy. The rest is like pulling teeth.

And aren't you the one who brought up Miyagi in the first place?

QuoteYou are apparently not a betting man.  If you are holding a hand of cards with nothin' in it, you don't toss extra money in the pot to 'reduce risk'.

So, when faced with a movie that is risky, you don't spend extra money, you spend LESS money.

Its idiot simple, which is why you probably don't get it.  Known Actors are not magic cure alls for chancy movies, they just increase the cost of said movies... thus the risk.  Obviously its not a binary equation, but I shouldn't have to explain that to a person with a functional grasp of reality.  


In this case the cost difference between the white, known, Disney cast and a hypothetical cast of ethnic unknowns is probably pretty small, so its not a huge risk (increasing production costs) to use their known talent (potentially increasing draw).... though of course, Disney does have at a few known, popular ethnic actors in their stable who probably SHOULD be in the movie.

But its not directly about the whiteness, its about the built in fanbase these actors bring.




Except, you know, twenty years of lore showing John Connor as white, a name that comes from predominantly white ethnic crowds.  I mean, sure: John Connor could be some skinny dude from Kashmir who's parents were fans of western naming conventions. Hell, it even makes some sort of twisted sense: people from Kashmir are far more likely to survive a war of extermination by sentient machines than any Americans, and its not like they don't already have that guerilla warfare mindset that Sarah Connor spent twenty years (supposedly) learning and imparting to her son...

In this case we have a reason for the character to be white.  Not a great reason, mind you, but a reason.  Or will you only be happy when there is not a single white face polluting your silver screens?



I practice. Mostly I just read what you write. The process destroys brain cells, giving me an advantage in internet debates. YOU are my secret weapon.

I would have responded to the rest of this crap, but you bore me.

Quote from: Jackalope;279173Sure, it's a vicious cycle.  Never claimed otherwise.

The point I'm making is that breaking the vicious cycle requires taking a risk, and that Hollywood is risk-adverse as a general rule, and becomes more risk adverse the more money is on the line.

Which is why I started my comments by saying that people who think that Disney should go with an all-Asian cast for either PC reasons or to please ridiculous fanboys seriously do not understand how decision are made in Hollywood.  They do not understand that the people making these movies would almost certainly be out of a job and financially ruined if they listened to these voices.

Let me see if I can summarize your evidence of this.

1) The Crow was a success, but it doesn't count because it was a fluke.
2) Harold and Kumar was a success, but you think it would have been a bigger success with white stars.  
3) Most of Jackie Chan's and Jet Li's American films were successes, but they weren't huge successes except for the Rush Hour films.
4) The Forbidden Kingdom was a flop.  

The thing is, I don't see this as ironclad evidence that casting Asian leads would make the film flop and thus ruin the producer's career.  The only genuine flop you've cited is The Forbidden Kingdom, which seems more like an exception given that it's stars had plenty of other successful films.  

I'm not saying that it is risk-free -- indeed, I think it is a risk regardless.  However, Hollywood does take risks from time to time -- doing something different like Harold and Kumar, and making money on it.  I'm just saying it's not an unreasonable or idiotic thing to ask for.

Quote from: jhkim;279181Let me see if I can summarize your evidence of this.

I don't think we're clear on what "this" is.

Quote1) The Crow was a success, but it doesn't count because it was a fluke.

Correct.  The tragic death of a young star created tremendous buzz for the movie, which means that it is hard to take a lesson from the film.  If one wanted to speculate that The Dark Knight would be huge because of Heath Ledger's death, and cite the The Crow as a prececent, that would be reasonable.

But speculating that a relatively unknown Asian lead will make a movie a hit because The Crow had a relatively unknown Asian lead is highly questionable logic.

QuoteThe thing is, I don't see this as ironclad evidence that casting Asian leads would make the film flop and thus ruin the producer's career.

I never claimed that.

I never once have claimed that casting Asian leads would make the film flop.  I'm at best claiming that a non-Asian cast won't cause a film to flop.  Nobody really knows if casting Asian leads would make the film flop, succeed,or have zero impact on its success.

There isn't any real evidence to suggest that unknown Asian leads can carry a 50+ million dollar picture.  No one has decided to take that risk yet.  The reason they haven't taken that risk is because the reward is...abstract at best.  Even if the movie is success, it unlikely to be seen as being successful because of the Asian cast, but rather as being successful despite the Asian cast.

That conventional wisdom -- which is based on trends like Jackie Chan and Jet Li performing worse at box offices than white stars who work the same genres, and movies like Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle seeing less of a return than Dude, Where's My Car? -- means that even if an all-Asian cast film is a success, people will wonder if it could have done better with a white cast.

This was the logic that led to a $140 million budget for Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai:  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made $213 million worldwide, and someone thought "How much MORE would that have made with Tom Cruise?"  and presto, you get The Last Samurai.

By the way, the answer to the question "How much MORE would that have made with Tom Cruise?" is about $240 million.  The Last Samurai scored a cool 450 million dollars at the box office.

So let's say Avatar the Airbender gets made for $80 million with an all Asian cast of unknowns and pulls in $160 million. A success.  The first thing people will ask is "Could it have made more if you'd gone with a less risky cast?"

QuoteI'm not saying that it is risk-free -- indeed, I think it is a risk regardless.  However, Hollywood does take risks from time to time -- doing something different like Harold and Kumar, and making money on it.  I'm just saying it's not an unreasonable or idiotic thing to ask for.

And you, like Spike, seem to be unable or unwilling to grasp that the movies being cited as risk-taking -- The Crow and Harold and Kumar -- were exceptionally low budget (for studio films), and thus open to taking greater risks.  Harold and Kumar was a $9 million dollar risk.  In Hollywood terms that's chump change.  The Crow was made for around $15 million, also small potatoes.

You're not really doing anything to challenge my "The more money involved, the less risks taken" premise.  Pointing out that a lot of low-budget movies take (small) risks is not a challenge to that premise.  Low-budget films are the place where risk tends to pay off the most, sometimes in a HUGE way.

Quote from: Jackalope;279173I think this is a case of you SERIOUSLY overestimating the understanding of children -- most of whom probably don't realize that the very white looking kids of Avatar with their white voice actors are intended to be Japanese (I myself find it hard to believe, what with the girl being a brunette with blue eyes)

Do you have any evidence to support your claim that the 6 to 11 year olds that make up the majority of the Avatar audience are actually concerned by this whitewashing?

Also, do you understand that to succeed this movie has to appeal to a lot of people who have never heard of Avatar?   Avatar has a viewing base of about 5 million.  Way more than 5 million people have to go see this movie for it to make it's money back.

No more evidence than you have to support your claim.  I mean, you have a few movies that you keep citing, but I doubt the race of the cast played any part in that - have studies or legitimate authorship about the subject you'd care to cite?

And its not 6-11 year olds.  Sure, they are a part, but a big part of anime culture is junior high/high school and above aged kids, and young adults.  There are a LOT of fans of anime, and Avatar in general, who are double digit ages above 6-11.  

Kids are a LOT more astute than you give them credit for - in this age of easy internet access, they know more than people think.  I teach, and I know lots of kids for whom race is a non-issue, and most kids who are anime fans know its japanese in origin, and would like to see SOME asians in the role they are supposed to be.

My stepson is also a big anime fan, as are his friends, and while Damon isn't an Avatar fan, he has friends of his age who are, and are pissed there aren't many asians in the movie.

I doubt its as big a deal as some are making - and I don't doubt there are SOME people who won't go see a movie with an asian cast.  But I imagine the actuality of the situation is different from your arguements.  Most young people today, in this age of multiculturalism and large immigrant populations, are pretty color blind and used to the many-colored nature of our society.

Quote from: Jackalope;279200This was the logic that led to a $140 million budget for Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai:  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon made $213 million worldwide, and someone thought "How much MORE would that have made with Tom Cruise?"  and presto, you get The Last Samurai.

By the way, the answer to the question "How much MORE would that have made with Tom Cruise?" is about $240 million.  The Last Samurai scored a cool 450 million dollars at the box office.

Ummm...thats absolute bullshit.  The Last Samurai and Crouching Tiger have as much to do with each other as Manos the Hand of Fate and Bride Wars.

And if you want to get really real - CTHD actually made 200 mill, as it had a budget of around 17 mill, while TLS made 300, cause its budget was 140 mill - so the difference between the two was around 100 mill - much less than you would make it out to be - and from a ratio perspective of gross to budget, CTHD was a much bigger success.
TLS is a fact-based true story of a real person, set in the real world.  There is ZERO wuxia or mystical element to it.  CTHD is one of the most wuxia movies in existance, and is essentially Star Wars with Asians.  It is decidedly NOT realistic.

The bigger barrier for CTHD was it was subtitled in its initial run, and North American audiences have an aversion to subtitles.  CTHD also didn't get NEAR the marketing push TLS got.

Quote from: Jackalope;279200And you, like Spike, seem to be unable or unwilling to grasp that the movies being cited as risk-taking -- The Crow and Harold and Kumar -- were exceptionally low budget (for studio films), and thus open to taking greater risks.  Harold and Kumar was a $9 million dollar risk.  In Hollywood terms that's chump change.  The Crow was made for around $15 million, also small potatoes.

You're not really doing anything to challenge my "The more money involved, the less risks taken" premise.  Pointing out that a lot of low-budget movies take (small) risks is not a challenge to that premise.  Low-budget films are the place where risk tends to pay off the most, sometimes in a HUGE way.

And I hadn't actually seen any budget quoted for The Last Airbender movie.  The only thing I knew about it was that it was for the 6-11 year old market, starred a cast of mostly-unknowns, and had a mid-range director attached.   I had thought that Shyamalan's last few films (i.e. The Village, The Lady in the Water, The Happening) were lower budget -- but now that I looked them up, they were full-budget in the $50 to $75 million range.  

Eh.  So maybe it's going to be more in the full-budget range rather than low -- i.e. more like Bridge to Terabithia ($60M) rather than Sky High ($35M).  I don't know, but it seems to me like a bit overstated to say that it is fine to spend fifteen million 1994 dollars on an Asian-lead movie, but it would be absolutely idiotic to even suggest that a higher-budget movie do similar  fifteen years later.

Quote from: Hackmastergeneral;279209Ummm...thats absolute bullshit.  The Last Samurai and Crouching Tiger have as much to do with each other as Manos the Hand of Fate and Bride Wars.

You're overthinking it. You don't get how producers see movies.

Most producers don't know what a good movie is.  They know what good movie poster is.  Look at the posters for both movies.  What do they convey?  A sophisticated action film set in Asia.  The Last Samurai was greenlit because of Crouching Tiger.

See, producers don't know what terms like wuxia means.  That kind of stuff is for the "creatives" to think about.

Quote from: jhkim;279216And I hadn't actually seen any budget quoted for The Last Airbender movie.  The only thing I knew about it was that it was for the 6-11 year old market, starred a cast of mostly-unknowns, and had a mid-range director attached.   I had thought that Shyamalan's last few films (i.e. The Village, The Lady in the Water, The Happening) were lower budget -- but now that I looked them up, they were full-budget in the $50 to $75 million range.

I haven't seen a budget quoted either, but I saw some clips of the cartoon and I know that producers have at long last learned that the movie effects have to meet or exceed the expectations created by the source material.

And there ain't no fucking way they are going to make Avatar the Airbender look convincing for less than $80 million.  Maybe $50 million.  But I seriously don't think the combination of sets and effects is going to be cheap.

QuoteEh.  So maybe it's going to be more in the full-budget range rather than low -- i.e. more like Bridge to Terabithia ($60M) rather than Sky High ($35M).  I don't know, but it seems to me like a bit overstated to say that it is fine to spend fifteen million 1994 dollars on an Asian-lead movie, but it would be absolutely idiotic to even suggest that a higher-budget movie do similar  fifteen years later.

Now, see, I never said that it said it was idiotic to suggest it, but rather that Hollywood wasn't going to take a risk without a good reason, and that anyone who thinks they should take the risk "to satisfy PC people who won't see it anyways" or "to satisfy die-hard fans who will see it anyways" is an idiot.

Quote from: Hackmastergeneral;279208I doubt its as big a deal as some are making - and I don't doubt there are SOME people who won't go see a movie with an asian cast.  But I imagine the actuality of the situation is different from your arguements.  Most young people today, in this age of multiculturalism and large immigrant populations, are pretty color blind and used to the many-colored nature of our society.

You forget the existence of overseas markets.

Quote from: Hackmastergeneral;279145You've also got Mos Def as For Prefect in the Hitchhikers movie.  The character did not change in any noticable way beyond skin color.  

I think a black Dr. Who would be great.  There's nothing in Doctor Who's background and history that demands a white actor, beyond the fact that it was made by white people with white actors.  Theres nothign in the actual CHARACTER that demands whiteness.

Uh huh... except you know what? I suspect that while you'd say that about many "white" characters, you wouldn't say the same about ANY non-white character being portrayed as white.  

Because in this case, you could make the same argument about the Avatar Kids: "the character won't change in any noticeable way beyond skin colour" and "there is nothing in the actual CHARACTER that demands Aang be non-white!"


RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;279269Uh huh... except you know what? I suspect that while you'd say that about many "white" characters, you wouldn't say the same about ANY non-white character being portrayed as white.  

Because in this case, you could make the same argument about the Avatar Kids: "the character won't change in any noticeable way beyond skin colour" and "there is nothing in the actual CHARACTER that demands Aang be non-white!"

I don't know Doctor Who that well, so perhaps you can fill in about what is important about his racial appearance.  Aang's race is very important for the story, because he is the last surviving member of the Air Tribe.  The Fire Nation's genocide of the Air Tribe is a huge deal, and indeed is the very title.  

Now, the Air Tribe aren't a real-world race, but their culture is very clearly based on the culture of Tibet and to some degree India.  It is possible to code this in different ways, but if Aang appears racially the same as all the other characters, I think something is definitely wrong.  

I understand that the Doctor is supposed to be the last of the Gallifreyan Time Lords -- an alien species that was wiped out.  However, he changes appearance with each incarnation.  It isn't clear to me how this is tied to being British or European, but then there are people who know the show much better than me.  (Incidentally, I heard that prior actor Tom Baker was Jewish.  Was that an issue?)

(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3821/avatarthelastairbenderam3.jpg)

I haven't seen a single episode of Avatar, so can't comment on the background stories, but like many anime stories the characters don't look particularly Asian.

Quote from: jhkim;279282I don't know Doctor Who that well, so perhaps you can fill in about what is important about his racial appearance.  Aang's race is very important for the story, because he is the last surviving member of the Air Tribe.  The Fire Nation's genocide of the Air Tribe is a huge deal, and indeed is the very title.  

Now, the Air Tribe aren't a real-world race, but their culture is very clearly based on the culture of Tibet and to some degree India.  It is possible to code this in different ways, but if Aang appears racially the same as all the other characters, I think something is definitely wrong.  

I understand that the Doctor is supposed to be the last of the Gallifreyan Time Lords -- an alien species that was wiped out.  However, he changes appearance with each incarnation.  It isn't clear to me how this is tied to being British or European, but then there are people who know the show much better than me.  (Incidentally, I heard that prior actor Tom Baker was Jewish.  Was that an issue?)

I hadn't heard that Tom Baker was Jewish; he may be, but I know that at one point he was Catholic by religion, and actually studied to become a monk before he "ran away from the monastery" to become an actor instead.

Anyways, no, it doesn't affect things that he's jewish. You could argue that the icon of Doctor Who is above all, BRITISH, and there are certain qualities expected of him.  He is the essential British Superhero, the icon of what makes the british idea of heroism different from the concept in other parts of the world, and he should represent all the essence of british culture (traditional, mythological, and pop).
In reality, I have a list of qualities that "define" Doctor Who to me, and his skin colour is on that list but relatively lower on the list than a lot of other qualities (I would be likelier to see a black Doctor as "acceptable" than I would a female Doctor, and I would see either as more likely to be "acceptable" than an American Doctor Who of any colour or gender).

But the fact is that you and your kind have no issue with racial or gender changes as long as they're on the right end of the politically correct barrier, because you give every race an "essential definition of character" EXCEPT white european, they're interchangeable with anything at all, and that should be encouraged in your minds to make up for "historic injustices".  So obviously Aang's asianess is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL in your minds, claiming the reasons that have already been given in this thread; or say, Black Lightning's blackness would obviously be ESSENTIAL to the character (its right there in the name! Plus he's "urban", its essential to his background!), or Lara Croft being a woman (its what defines her! Her tough femininity!!).  But Doctor Who can be a black paraplegic lesbian without batting an eyelash ("He's an alien, so he's just white by coincidence"), Starbuck could be a woman or Superman could be Chinese to you ("his race isn't essential, its an "immigrant story""; never mind that if he had been a CHINESE Kansas farmboy it would have been an essentially different character, and in fact his being white IS pretty essential to making him who he is as a character).

Now remember, I actually agree with you about Aang & co.  I do think they need to be played by Asian actors. I'm just not so hypocritical as to claim that whether or not a literary/cinematic character's traditional appearance/race/character-integrity are worthy of protecting or not depends upon whether the character in his original conception is non-white.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Jackalope;279224Now, see, I never said that it said it was idiotic to suggest it, but rather that Hollywood wasn't going to take a risk without a good reason, and that anyone who thinks they should take the risk "to satisfy PC people who won't see it anyways" or "to satisfy die-hard fans who will see it anyways" is an idiot.

Well, I am the parent of a 6-11 year old.  He loved the first season of the animated series up to a point, though by the end of the second season it got too depressing for him.  I watched a number of episodes with him and encouraged him, because it is one of the rare kid's shows that is quite watchable by adults.  If there were a good adaptation of it, I am certain I would take him to see it with a number of his friends.  However, based on what I have seen, I am going to avoid it and I will warn away those whom I know as well.  

Do I demand that the studios should obey me regardless of other knowledge?  Of course not.  However, I consider it reasonable and non-idiotic to ask for.  Generally speaking, I think that high quality and a modicum of artistic integrity can pay off for a creative company like Disney.  Companies can in principle blindly cast parts based on whoever seems most popular with the target demographic, regardless of the character that they're going to play -- but I don't think that is the only way to make money.  

I think that it can pay off to be true to your source material.  For example, I think that support from the fans of the book was important in driving the success of the Lord of the Rings films, and the Narnia films as well.  In contrast, my son had just read The Tale of Desperaux a few weeks ago -- and when we checked out the preview of the new movie, he just shouted out "Oh, come on!"  The movie appears to have been a huge flop -- making just $65 million worldwide thus far, with a $60 million production budget (and probably equal or greater other expenses).  

Quote from: CavScout;279285(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3821/avatarthelastairbenderam3.jpg)

I haven't seen a single episode of Avatar, so can't comment on the background stories, but like many anime stories the characters don't look particularly Asian.

Like most cartoon characters, they are indeterminate among Caucasian, Semitic, or Asian features.  Cartoons don't represent subtle differences like epicanthic fold or the roundness of face, unless the character is an exaggerated caricature of race.  There is a tendency to assume that characters are the same as some default for your region.  Thus, in Japan, people assume that characters are Asian unless they have blonde hair; while in the U.S. and Europe, people will say that characters look Caucasian -- even Charlie Brown or Tintin.  

Quote from: RPGPundit;279291In reality, I have a list of qualities that "define" Doctor Who to me, and his skin colour is on that list but relatively lower on the list than a lot of other qualities (I would be likelier to see a black Doctor as "acceptable" than I would a female Doctor, and I would see either as more likely to be "acceptable" than an American Doctor Who of any colour or gender).

Well, if you could state and explain that list, then there might be some discussion.  From my limited watching and seeing the diversity of the 11 actors thus far, it isn't clear to me which actors would look like a potential Doctor Who incarnation and which wouldn't.  Your requirement that he be British as opposed to American seems like a nationality difference rather than a genetic one.  After all, you can't necessarily tell by someone's looks whether they are American or British.  I'll buy that because of the show's focus on Britain, the actor should be British in speech and culture.  Naturally, they should be able to act the same personality as their predecessors.  But do they have to be Anglo-Saxon in appearance?  

Quote from: RPGPundit;279291But the fact is that you and your kind have no issue with racial or gender changes as long as they're on the right end of the politically correct barrier, because you give every race an "essential definition of character" EXCEPT white european, they're interchangeable with anything at all, and that should be encouraged in your minds to make up for "historic injustices".

I already gave examples of my opinions that contradict this preconceptions of me and my kind.  Characters who are of real-world races should usually be played by actors of similar heritage -- this includes Europeans just as much as any other group.  In a straight adaptation of Burroughs, Lord Greystoke should not be played by a Semitic, Asian, or African.  In addition, a great deal of fantasy fiction is -- for better or worse -- tied up in racial identity.  I think that Tolkien and R.E. Howard have clear racial identities for their characters, for example.  It was fitting that Conan, as a Cimmerian, was cast as an Eastern European.  

However, that doesn't mean that this is an absolute rule that can never be violated.  I already gave an example of Catwoman.  That was a role I think established by the late African-American actor Eartha Kitt (eulogized here recently), but I had no issue with the role later being played by Michelle Pfieffer.  In addition, this doesn't include the case of aliens, demons, and so forth.

ON DOCTOR WHO: In Modern times it has gotten to the point where his skin color doesn't matter - it just matters ho w good the actor (or actress) is that plays him.

If the Doctor was black or non-white, here are some actors that might work well in the part :

Chiwetel Ejiofor - definitely can play VERY British, and he has a slight and can do eccentric pretty well.
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0252230/

...Or the actor that was in the episode "Blink" might have been an interesting Doctor:
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0643394/
The character name was Billy Shipton , a police officer...but I could see him being interesting as the Doctor.

IF the Doctor was ever a woman - Alex Kingston might have made an interesting choice - unfortunately they already cast her as the VERY Doctor-like Professor River Song.

Heck, if the Doctor was still going to be older actors - Judi Dench might have been interesting or maybe even Helen Mirren.


- Ed C.

Isn't Dr. Who half human? I haven't watched much, so I might be confusing this with something else. In any case, his human parent may determine his limits in terms of appearance.

Just a thought.

As for Avatar, the only decision I really can't get on board with is Jesse McCartney as Zuko. No way in hell that's gonna work.

If we're considering hapa as asian for casting purposes how about Keanu Reeves? He's been in alot of successful films, not all of which were kung-fu movies. And before Smalltown there was yet another Superman tv show (Lois and Clark?) with Superman played by a hapa who was the spitting image of my hapa brother.
 
One of the dirty little secrets about Japanese racism is that the Japanese see themselves as more western than the other asians which is why Japanese comics have such Caucasian looking Japanese. So in that regard, I think this is more of a problem that Caucasian Japanese-wannabees have.
 
(P.S. Seriously? People don't get that Baby Superman = Baby Moses? WTF?)

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;279389If we're considering hapa as asian for casting purposes how about Keanu Reeves? He's been in alot of successful films, not all of which were kung-fu movies. And before Smalltown there was yet another Superman tv show (Lois and Clark?) with Superman played by a hapa who was the spitting image of my hapa brother.

Huh.  Learn something new every day.  From a quick search, that would be Dean Cain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Cain), birth name Dean George Tanaka.  

In general, I think that there are a lot of hapa who generally pass for white (or some other race), so I do think that it is something of a distinct but related case from Asian casting.

Quote from: CavScout;279285(http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3821/avatarthelastairbenderam3.jpg)

I haven't seen a single episode of Avatar, so can't comment on the background stories, but like many anime stories the characters don't look particularly Asian.

Absolutely none of those characters seem remotely Asian to me.  The central character is CLEARLY European. He has pale whiteskin and blue eyes. Their dress and physical appearance suggests not Asia, but some generic fantasy world drawing from European fantasy (D&D fantasy) and Asian fantasy, a melange of the two.

Actually, looking at this image, I'd say the only way you could cast actors who look like that is to cast white people.

Which is one of the weird things about this thread.  Near as I can tell, the white actors that have been cast are perfect physical matches (skin tone, hair color, eye color) for their animated sources.  And given that the cartoon characters have European voices, I'm starting to think maybe all of this angst is extremely misplaced.

Quote from: Jackalope;279391Near as I can tell, the white actors that have been cast are perfect physical matches (skin tone, hair color, eye color) for their animated sources.  And given that the cartoon characters have European voices, I'm starting to think maybe all of this angst is extremely misplaced.

It sounds as if you haven't actually seen the show.  Is that right?  It seems to me that you are missing something.  Here's are some more detailed images:

Prince Zuko
(http://water-bender.com/images/bios/zuko.jpg)
Prince Zuko's voice actor Dante Basco (i.e. part of the "European voices")
(http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/355/dantebascogrant82976654nf2.jpg)
Proposed cast Jesse McCartney
(http://www.tattletart.com/wp-content/2008/04/jesse-mccartney.jpg)

Here's Sokka with his family of the Southern Water Tribe
(http://www.freewebs.com/hucko2/people.jpg)

And proposed casting Jackson Rathbone
(http://www.freewebs.com/edwardandisabellacullen/702591.jpg)

I am not saying that these images along prove that the casting is poor.  I am offering it as a bit of extra input for those unfamiliar with the show.  

Ultimately, I think that someone should see the show and judge for themselves.  It's not like there is only a single possible opinion of casting for a given source.

Adding a bit:  Here is Prince Zuko's uncle Iroh, my favorite character of the series,

(http://userimage.tv.com/user_images/profile/7/3/21839476161312858310645793190037/tv_profile.jpg)

And here is his voice actor, Mako,
(http://www.aaba-bay.com/uploads/aaba/mako.jpg)

Here is Sokka's sometime-girlfriend Suki
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/avatar/images/thumb/5/51/Suki.jpg/300px-Suki.jpg)

and her voice actress Jenny Kwan
(http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/6826/kwan3.gif)
Yes, there are also plenty of white members of the voice cast.  I'm not trying to say that the voice actors are majority Asian -- I'm just disputing that the voices are "European".  The voices are all fluent English-speaking, including actors of various ethnicities.

Quote from: beejazz;279387Isn't Dr. Who half human? I haven't watched much, so I might be confusing this with something else. In any case, his human parent may determine his limits in terms of appearance.

That was something from the Fox TV Movie that didn't fit at all with anything from previous canon, and has since been explicitly dismissed from canon (could be explained as the freshly-regenerated Doctor's addled brain just speaking nonsense, I guess).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;279435That was something from the Fox TV Movie that didn't fit at all with anything from previous canon, and has since been explicitly dismissed from canon (could be explained as the freshly-regenerated Doctor's addled brain just speaking nonsense, I guess).

RPGPundit

Thanks for the clarification. I've only seen a little of this stuff, and that was a long time ago.

M. Night.
I had to admit THE HAPPENING blew my mind, but not in a good way.
When Mark Wahlberg went in to negotiate for peace with a plastic plant I nearly wet my pants.
And the rest of the movie- being chased around a field by the prop crew with a giant fan to make the grass wave? The genius of horror on no budget.