I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Probably not a lot - it is, after all, a children's show.
But Avatar is a really interesting show. It takes place in a made-up world. It really is - it deals with imperialism, environmentalism, genocide, death, family, religion, spirituality, abuse and a bunch of other very serious issues that most 8-10 year olds in America don't think too much about. Frankly, I love this show. I love the characters (who develop and change) and the show is definitely feminist, with kick-butt women all over the freaking place, despite having a boy as the protagonist.
But what I really want to talk about is the live-action movie coming out in 2010, based on the TV series.
You see, everyone in the cartoon is Asian. The culture and societies of the people in this show are based off of China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Inuit Alaska and I think I have even seen hints of Philippine culture, but I'm not as familiar with it. Everyone is either Eastern Asian or Inuit (but called differently in the show). The main character is clearly a Tibetan Buddhist.
However, the live-action movie has casted 3 out of 4 of the main characters with white people. And the fourth person is Indian while his character was Eastern Asian in the cartoon version.
Jackson Rathbone, Jasper Hale of Twilight, is playing an Inuit-like character. He is white. When this was brought to his attention, how very white he is and how very not-white the character is, he said:
"I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan."
This enrages me. Why would they cast white people into Asian roles? Do they think people won't want to watch a cast of Asian people? Could they really not find any "good" Asian actors? (Hard to believe, when they originally had Jesse McCartney in the cast.)
Frankly, this is disgusting. For such a groundbreaking cartoon, they really fucked over the movie. After all the research and effort that the creators put into making this show as authentic and realistic as possible, it gets taken up by M. Night Shyamalan and all that work gets thrown out the window.
Fuck this.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Race and Movies: Don't need to be Asian to play an Asian.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/15496
You weren't bother that the voice actors for the cartoon are white? Would those be "asian" rolls as well?
You say that the show "It takes place in a made-up world." Why are the characters in a made up world required to be of Asian heritage?
The voice actors being white is also disappointing, but that disappointment doesn't make this issue any less disappointing. Not to mention that
The made-up world is based on Asian culture and all the characters in the cartoon look Asian. (At least, many have "slanted" eyes - please excuse me if that's an offensive term, I don't know a better term - they are all brunettes or black-haired, and except for one nation, their skin tones are Asian-like.)
Why wouldn't you cast the characters as Asian?
Would any Asian work? Or do the rolls have to match the cultured that was borrowed for the character, ie. Inuit or Tibetan? I don't see how brown skin and slanted eyes helps the characters in this case. The show is based upon a fantasy world that borrowed from various cultures. But the race of the actors used in the movie for the fantasy world makes no difference to me. The only requirement i see is that they can act.
Oh God don't let Lucy Lu play someone hypothetically Japanese again.
But the point is - they couldn't find any good actors who were Asian? Only white actors were to be found?
They clearly didn't look very hard.
There is an entire movement out there about this -
check out www.racebending.com for a whole visual comparison, interviews with the casting directors, the series creators, etc.
Basically, this is what discrimination looks like. This has happened multiple times...it's called Yellowface (just like Blackface) where white actors end up portraying Asian/Asian Americans because Hollywood doesn't think that there is an audience for Asian American actors.
If you want to see what I'm talking about (and the sheer offensiveness of it) check out this visual history of yellowface.
Honestly, the characters in Avatar never struck me as being distinctively Asian. With the exception of the Water tribe, I'd probably have called them all Caucasian if asked.
Nope, nothing even remotely Asian-influenced about this show.
I was talking about the characters, not the show itself (and even that argument doesn't excuse Katara and Sokka's actors--there's no pretending they're white). I'm well aware that it is heavily based in Asian cultures.
Even if you looked only at facial features, color of skin and hairstyle/facial hair, you think those characters look white?
I know this is probably white privilege talking, but it never occurred to me that they might be Asian. Honestly, you could find actors of both ethnicities that would look appropriate to me.
I've never seen the show, but the Wikipedia article says that it has influences of Chinese art, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. I don't think it's weird to expect the characters in the movies to be East Asian, if that's how the characters look in the cartoon. I mean, we all know that there's a difference between the way Whites and East Asians look. It's silly to just consider acting talent before anything else in a movie that's based on an existing show.
I don't know anything about Avatar and can't really argue whether the characters are meant to be Asian or not.
However.
There is a real problem with whitewashing in film and theater. I'm an actor, and there are generally several schools of thought about this. (Feel free to add more if you know of them)
One way is to cast diverse actors, their races corresponding or not (to their familial relations or what have you) not really mattering at all. The audience accepts this fairly easily. If a character's ethnic background is written into the script or otherwise important to the plot of the play, only then is there an effort to make sure the actor's ethnicity corresponds to the character's.
Another is to cast according to how the playwright's imagined intentions. This usually means most of the characters end up white, with more "ethnic" actors being cast only if the play calls for it.
Thirdly, and most problematically, is when characters that were written as ethnic minorities end up as white when the project is produced. This happens constantly. Or, actors "pass" for an ethnicity that they are not. You can be Caucasian and get roles written as Greek, Hispanic, Jewish, Italian, Middle Eastern, Indian--its absurd.
I generally don't have as much a problem with the second method, but when casting directors or produces go out of their way to "whiten up" a production, something is very, very wrong there. As for the "as long as they can act" thing....really? Many actors are talented. There are dozens of actors, sometimes hundreds, or even thousands, that would be "right" for any particular role. It's usually just a matter of luck and who you know. But there is a problem when a character meant to be from Indian is played by a Caucasian actress with dark hair and dark eyes.
I bring this up because I think it may not be helping your point. The particular Avatar character you link in the article has blue eyes.
But I do agree with your point. Asians are underrepresented in the media. Often when they are represented, it is pretty offensive. An example of what you describe (a live-action adaptation of an animation where the actors are white to their asian animated counterparts) would be the recent Dragonball movie.
What do you suggests viewers do to change this trend?
I have mixed feelings about this. It does negate how the show is geared towards East Asian culture, but eye color does tend to correlate with the elements. For example, the character I linked to is from the Water Tribe. People in the Water Tribe have blue or brown eyes, Fire Nation folk have gold or brown, maybe grey, eyes, Earth Kingdom has brown/grey/green eyes and the Air Nomads seem to be grey eyed, maybe brown eyed. (It's hard to tell with the Air Nomads since the Fire Nation committed genocide against them and wiped them all out except for one.
So while I can see the show's justification for having blue eyes on a character who's supposed to be Inuit... I'm not sure I approve. But there's their reasoning.
I cannot tell you how much I agree with you. I have seen every episode and I love the show so very much. I was also greatly disappointed to see the overwhelming amount of caucasion actors/actresses placed in the roles for the movie (and seriously...the guy from twilight...i wanted to puke.) I don't necessarily think that they NEED to be asian but I do think that filmmakers in America like to fuck up movies by white-washing them and dumbing them down for people who might not have an interest in the subject, but want to get money out of them anyway. It happened with Dragon Ball Z and I was so completely disgusted with that movie that I had to watch the entire series over again just to erase that garbage from my mind. It sucks because the movie making industry just does not understand that if they would appeal more to the fans by keeping the story set AS IT WAS ORIGINALLY AND AS IT SHOULD BE and the characters as close to the ones in the show as possible, they would get soooooooo much more money and attention from the fans but for some reason, people in the movie-making business do not have a brain and instead like to feed off things like violence, sexism, and potty humor, not to mention crappy casting much of the time. I am crossing my fingers that this movie will not be as bad as I think it is going to be...
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the Americanization of Dragonball. Son Goku as a slim 26 year old caucasian wirework performing high school student. Huh. It was bizarre. (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was nearly Americanized, if you recall, making it take place in some American high school.)
That said, who would be sufficiently buff and young looking to play the Japanese and Chinese characters, as well as Son Goku, who passed in his childhood as a Chinese born human who happened to have a hairy monkey tail?
I never knew about that! Where was I when this happened.....
Harry Potter was nearly Americanized?
See, I remember lots of American kids being rather put out that they couldn't try for any of the roles, because Rowling was hellbent on it being a British movie through and through, because, well, that's where it's set.
The only American actress was Susuan Bones in the first movie, and she didn't have a speaking part, and she was daughter of the director.
*hides Harry Potter geek flag again*
"Rowling was hellbent on it being a British movie through and through, because, well, that's where it's set."
Imagine that. A creator wishing her billion dollar story remain true to her vision or intent. As opposed to say, what gets done to stories with Tom Cruise or Will Smith in them.
I am a huge fan of the Avatar series. I watched every episode. What pisses me off more than anything else is not so much the race of the actors, but Zuko's appearance. Zuko in the show is pale, and probably Japanese. Zuko in the movie is Indian. Someone else brought up the point somewhere else, where the dark skinned character is the bad guy, while the light skinned character is the good guy. Also, the Fire Nation should more Japanese than anything. Another point, Zuko has a MASSIVE scar on his eye. He almost can't open it, and his ear is almost seared off. In the pictures I saw of the live action movie, his massive deformation looks like mild skin irritation. That also pissed me off to no end, because Zuko is my favorite character, and the scar is one of the main reasons I like him.
Yeah, I think this is what you're talking about. It is so very, very fail.
Wow, the casting call shots are just so....pathetic. I'm usually pretty oblivious to stuff like this, but 'caucasian or any other ethnicity'? Even I have to go 'WTF' to that. Especially for Sokka and Katara.
While I'm at it, might as well question the choice of Shyamalan for director. This strikes me as more Peter Jackson or Michael Bay territory. I'm an eye-candy junkie and I have a bad feeling about the special effects for this movie...
Oh gods, please not Michael Bay! I can't handle any more pointless explosions and shoddy camera work! :P
Anyone ever hear of the movie 21?
The film was inspired by a true story, the MIT Blackjack team who were all east-asian in appearance. The movie version white washed it, with the lead roles all given to causcasians.
Put simply, t's White Privilege which isn't anything new.
As chombs says above, 21 was whitewashed. So was Speed Racer.
And Jake Gyllenhaal is playing the Price of Persia! 'Cause he's so very Persian.
The Speed Racer anime had fairly westernized-looking characters already, so I wouldn't count that as an example. The other ones are on target though.
Also, I totally agree with you on the casting.
I can only speak for myself, but if the characters I wrote about were being put in a movie, I'd be batshit crazy over the casting, making sure everyone was right. Not all my characters are white because not everyone in the world is white (and I live in a pretty multi-racial town, so I dunno how anyone could make every character white in any kind of story). Also, ethnicity plays a prominent role in a lot of people's lives and how he/she see/shape him/herself. Not everyone is a European mutt (meaning no offense; it's how i explain my heritage).
However, I do like the guy they cast as Zuko. Not because he looks like Zuko (well, he could, with a little hair and make-up, I guess), but because he does not look like a guy to play a villain! He'll either have crazy good acting skills or fail at it entirely. I'm hoping for the first.
Yes, yes, yes!! this is a problem!!
I think the best two articles to sum it up are here:
http://glockgal.livejournal.com/375625.html
http://chatter.plotstorm.com/2008/12/11/airbending-racism/
And may I also say that there are some Asians who have blue or green eyes! And they have a variety of features just like Caucasians do!
I think this article will also be helpful:
http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html
The above article is about Manga characters and why they are Japanese even though to the American eye, they "look white". Now, Avatar isn't strictly anime, but the article relates because one of tne of the points made is that in America, a circle with two dots and a mouth is a white, male face. That is the norm. Afterwards, visual markers are used to indicate a face other than white and male. Eyelashes are added for female. "slanted" eyes and straight black hair might mark an east asian person (in American comics) so to go further, "skin color" or clothing would also be markers signifying otherness.
To conclude, one should conclude the race of an American cartoon character by their surroundings and clothing markers.
In Avatar, that's all East Asian and Inuit!
As for Avatar taking place in a fantasy world...so does Dora the Explorer.
If a live action movie of Dora the Explorer were made and Abigail Breslin (clearly a good actress) was cast, that's still whitewashing!! Dora the Explorer is clearly not white, just as the Avatar characters clearly aren't white, and all the minority children who took inspiration from this show (Avatar) will be disappointed that, once again, they don't see children that look like them playing characters that they formerly identified with. Are there really *no* talented east asian/inuit/poc actors?
http://clairelight.typepad.com/seelight/2009/01/defining-cultural-appropriation.html