Raaaaaage

As someone who's been crusading against the latent gender role stereotypes related to the entertainment industry, I'm a little ashamed to admit how long it's taken me to get interested in the ethnic side of things. While I can't say I'm thankful about the events that prompted my current more enlightened state (save perhaps one or two that are more perephiral to entertainment), I do feel at least an inkling better about myself that I am now more aware and active about it in general. This really pales in comparison, though, to how downright horrible above casting decisions have actually made me feel.

If you haven't thought about it much yourself, or want to see what the "big deal" is, or just want to read more to get that good ol' righteous indignation flowing, I've got a selection of essays to link you to:

I Didn't Dream of Dragons and the follow-up White people, its not all about you, but for this post it is (and wow did I feel the burn there >_O) by deepad
So I Was Born Into the World by ciderpress
Shame by Pam Noles (this one made me cry a couple times)

These posts themselves have a lot more links in them to similar posts (and antithetical posts even), and I spent a lot of last Monday just getting lost in the text and comments before I actually stopped to try and remember why I had the day off ("Oh yeah, it's Martin Luther King Jr Day! ...O rite.").

Then there's things like what the Avatar main casting call apparently actually said ("Caucasian or any other ethnicity"? Really, Hollywood?) and the more recent casting call for extras (ow ow ow, that is not right on so many levels).

Also! Aldkjfsd omigosh this kid is so adorable and he totally auditioned for the part and everything WHY IS HE NOT PLAYING AANG, THIS IS A TRAVESTY.


I think that about sums up my thoughts on things for the moment. Now, I'm off to talk to my roommates and how their reactions to my in-apartment rants on the racist casting of this movie series (and others in the future now (and probably also in the past), I am sure) makes me feel. Once I get up the gumption.

Edit: Added the video of Perris I meant to link, which has him actually acting out some lines and stuff, and also the comment in aang_aint_white where his mom talks about his audition and the results.

Edit 2: It occurs to me. I still don't know how they plan to portray Appa and Momo in this yet. And after the show got an award for how well it treated the animals, I'd hate to see them marginalized, etc. Is that information available anywhere yet?

Edit 3: Now that I think about it, it probably wouldn't be too far-fetched to predict that the directors and such would be willing to make Toph male again. I mean, she was originally designed as a male character, and was only made female during planning sessions with Nickelodeon, but I think that really helps bring balance to the team. Had Toph not been made a girl, I can easily imagine an episode or three with Katara attempting to over-feminize in self-defense. Which, really, just sick and wrong.