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Jul. 30th, 2009 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laleiaIt's International Blog Against Racism Week. And this post has been in the making for a while. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone.
Avatar: the Last Airbender, the live-action film is coming out sometime this year and I'm not going to go see it in theatres. I will encourage my friends not to see it in theatres. I won't buy it, or rent it, or view it in any legitimate way. I make no promises about illegal downloads/streaming, but I refuse to spend a single cent that will go back to Paramount as a result of this film.
Because I think it's a travesty.
I didn't watch all of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I watched all but the last episode of the second season and only the first episode of the third. But I loved it anyways.
I enjoyed Avatar for many, many reasons. It was humorous. It was cute. It didn't paint the world in black and white. It was one of those rare children's cartoons that an adult could watch and not think, "Wow, that was preachy" or "Wow, that was boring."
I was happy that a live action movie was coming out. A little perturbed, because Hollywood was coming out with derivative movies left and right, sequels and remakes and movies based off of books I'd read. But I couldn't wait to watch it.
The casting? Dismayed me to no end.
It has always been evident to me that the nations in Avatar were based off Asian nations. I never said to myself, "Gee, it's so great that Asians are actually showing up in T.V. I must watch Avatar because it is a small step forward for Nickolodeon, a giant step forward for Asian Americans in the media." Instead I marveled at the plot, and Zuko (and at Zuko/Mai fanfiction, but that is neither here nor there), and how creepy the Dai Li were, and both predictable and unpredictable the plot could be.
But in the end, I'm not white. And seeing people who look me in a cartoon for children on mainstream television is not a default. I do not look around me and see the media filled with role models who look like me and have the same experiences I have. And if you think television filled with white main characters and their sassy black friends or nerdy Asian friends, characters of color serving only as comic relief and supporting cast, doesn't affect children of color at all, in the least, I ...
I'm probably going to walk away because I can't handle this conversation, right now.
What I'm trying to say is that the Asian characters on Avatar are, in the end, important to me as person as well as important to the plot. Seeing the symbols of my heritage, seeing the Chinese characters and the martial art forms that kind of look like they come from a wuxia film, and the architecture, and the costumes, and the customs, and the culture. I loved Avatar all the more for it.
And I believe most people do. That they love the markers of different cultures, that the characters being Asian is also important to the plot.
So this is why the Avatar casting dismayed me. Hollywood has a long, long tradition of whitewashing its casts, and then yellowfacing/blackfacing/brownfacing as necessary. And when I say tradition, I don't mean "They did it in the past, but have stopped because they have seen the error of their ways." I mean, "They did it in the past, and they still do it, all the time."
I don't think there's anything I can do about it at this point. They won't/can't stop filming the movie. They won't/can't recast. They've already replaced all the Chinese calligraphy in the film with meaningless gibberish on purpose. And knowing a little a bit about the whole complicated movie business of options and rights, I'm guessing Avatar as I would like to see will probably never be made. (Or at least, not for a long, long time.)
But at least I can boycott it.
For more information, visit racebending.com
Avatar: the Last Airbender, the live-action film is coming out sometime this year and I'm not going to go see it in theatres. I will encourage my friends not to see it in theatres. I won't buy it, or rent it, or view it in any legitimate way. I make no promises about illegal downloads/streaming, but I refuse to spend a single cent that will go back to Paramount as a result of this film.
Because I think it's a travesty.
I didn't watch all of Avatar: the Last Airbender. I watched all but the last episode of the second season and only the first episode of the third. But I loved it anyways.
I enjoyed Avatar for many, many reasons. It was humorous. It was cute. It didn't paint the world in black and white. It was one of those rare children's cartoons that an adult could watch and not think, "Wow, that was preachy" or "Wow, that was boring."
I was happy that a live action movie was coming out. A little perturbed, because Hollywood was coming out with derivative movies left and right, sequels and remakes and movies based off of books I'd read. But I couldn't wait to watch it.
The casting? Dismayed me to no end.
It has always been evident to me that the nations in Avatar were based off Asian nations. I never said to myself, "Gee, it's so great that Asians are actually showing up in T.V. I must watch Avatar because it is a small step forward for Nickolodeon, a giant step forward for Asian Americans in the media." Instead I marveled at the plot, and Zuko (and at Zuko/Mai fanfiction, but that is neither here nor there), and how creepy the Dai Li were, and both predictable and unpredictable the plot could be.
But in the end, I'm not white. And seeing people who look me in a cartoon for children on mainstream television is not a default. I do not look around me and see the media filled with role models who look like me and have the same experiences I have. And if you think television filled with white main characters and their sassy black friends or nerdy Asian friends, characters of color serving only as comic relief and supporting cast, doesn't affect children of color at all, in the least, I ...
I'm probably going to walk away because I can't handle this conversation, right now.
What I'm trying to say is that the Asian characters on Avatar are, in the end, important to me as person as well as important to the plot. Seeing the symbols of my heritage, seeing the Chinese characters and the martial art forms that kind of look like they come from a wuxia film, and the architecture, and the costumes, and the customs, and the culture. I loved Avatar all the more for it.
And I believe most people do. That they love the markers of different cultures, that the characters being Asian is also important to the plot.
So this is why the Avatar casting dismayed me. Hollywood has a long, long tradition of whitewashing its casts, and then yellowfacing/blackfacing/brownfacing as necessary. And when I say tradition, I don't mean "They did it in the past, but have stopped because they have seen the error of their ways." I mean, "They did it in the past, and they still do it, all the time."
I don't think there's anything I can do about it at this point. They won't/can't stop filming the movie. They won't/can't recast. They've already replaced all the Chinese calligraphy in the film with meaningless gibberish on purpose. And knowing a little a bit about the whole complicated movie business of options and rights, I'm guessing Avatar as I would like to see will probably never be made. (Or at least, not for a long, long time.)
But at least I can boycott it.
For more information, visit racebending.com
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-30 03:35 pm (UTC)That they felt the need to cast the movie differently is just mind boggling. The world has so many different wonderful cultures in it, and to try to push Avatar into a cookie-cutter mold (when the reason most people enjoy it is for the very reason that it doesn't conform to the standard Disney formula) is so many different shades of wrong.
I can't say that I'm a fan of the show myself, as my cartoon love primarily falls to more off-the-wall stuff like Invader Zim and Futurama, but my daughter watched it when it was on the air, and she was appalled when she heard the news blurb on the casting for the movie. I can only imagine that most of the other fans - regardless of age, race, or gender - feel the same way.
Lame.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-30 09:55 pm (UTC)P.S. Ditto on the Zuko/Mai. :)