Monday, February 2, 2009

Lone Brown Face

Dev Patel, has been cast to play Prince Zuko. The young actor of comedic timing and with the general facial and body attributes to play Sokka; A Watertribe Warrior in the LIVE ACTION A:TLA, will instead be playing - Prince Zuko, he of the brooding angst and need to reclaim his honor in his father's eyes. (source)



So the anti-hero is brown and there are ethnic extras:


"It doesn't mean you're at a disadvantage if you didn't come in a big African thing. But guys, even if you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you'll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever."
 



Y'know this looks to me like so much throwing of dry, thin bones from M.Night and Paramount. (Jesse McCartney's Tour Date conflict - nice and polite fiction).


Yeah, I'm still upset. Yes, Avatar: The Last Airbender (Live Action) is still whitewashed to me. Moreover, aren't Inuit, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, South Asian and Meso-American civilizations not diverse enough?

Can casting and M.Night Shyamalan not conceive of four distinct nations who are all NOT WHITE? AND who are also not African?

Cause in real life? That list is a hell of a lot longer.

6 comments:

  1. Good post. It's amazing what's going on.

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  2. Ugh.. it's still whitewashed to me too. And the fact that they're casting ppl who aren't white as extras just makes it seem worse honestly. It's not even a "white world" now, it's just the heroes are white...

    Plus I hate while like there seems to be no problem accepting the idea of a fantasy world being ALL WHITE, there's a problem with a fantasy world that has NO white ppl in it >:O

    And of course the "we just cast the best actors for the job".. yeah I believe that... ALL about acting ability huh? and they all happen to be abled, white, pretty and thin. Uh huh... plus I want to know where the Inuit and Asian casting call for the main chars was, y'know the one where you see if you can find ppl who actually are the ethnicities of the chars you're casting for.. cuz like.. you had one right? And you just didn't find any decent actors in it and HAD to use white ppl.. RIGHT? I mean... you did TRY RIGHT!?

    It's such utter BS D:

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  3. To me, the worst thing is that now the only Asian announced in Team Avatar is the villain-turned-anti-hero-turned-good-guy assisting the now-all-white *indisputable* good guys. And he's a representative of the *BAD* country.

    IT DIDN'T MATTER WHEN THEY WERE ALL PoC! But now it's the same old shit.

    (ps I love Dev Patel though. I believe he can do Zuko. I believe he can *fly*.)

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  4. Ami Says:

    "And of course the "we just cast the best actors for the job".. yeah I believe that... ALL about acting ability huh? and they all happen to be abled, white, pretty and thin."

    And this scenario "just happens" over...and over...and over...and over...and over...

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  5. Yeah exactly Heavy. >.<;; It's just a big coincidence (also this idea that every single casting decision happens in a vaccuum independent of society). Of course there's also the unspoken implication that comes if you accept that it's just a big coincidence (that white ppl are the best actors) >:|

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  6. "IT DIDN'T MATTER WHEN THEY WERE ALL PoC! But now it's the same old shit."

    EXACTLY.

    Now, we've got an indisputable White Savior, the two White heroes, and the brown bad guys.

    Also, they changed the world from a wonderful mix of PoCs to India as the (Fire)Nation of bad guys, the Ambigous, easily corrupted (Earth Kingdom)Asia, and the White, primarily good Water Tribe.

    I hate it.

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