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Some TLA linkblogging, and an open letter
Jul. 2nd, 2010 12:10 pmWell. I guess my previous post was perhaps slightly less last-ish than I thought? Or rather, that was my last attempt to keep people from going out to the movie; it was far from my last word on the subject. So, sorry if you're tired of hearing about it, but I'm not tired of talking about it.
Three responses to read, even if you skip everything else ever:
Roger Ebert's review (and possibly also FacePainting)
io9: M. Night Shyamalan Finally Made A Comedy
Dante Basco: The Last Airbender: To Boycott or Not?
Oh, and here's M. Night's response* to Parties Unnamed, AKA anyone who has a beef with the racial aspect of TLA's casting, AKA Racebending.com and supporters.
...Yeah, okay, I am definitely doing this.
Dear M. Night,
No. You don't get to claim that "I’m casting this entire movie in this color blind way where everyone is represented," when you also say, in the same interview, that "[W]hen Dev was cast as Zuko, I said, OK, I have to cast an Uncle Iroh that looks like his uncle."
That isn't how colorblindness works. That's how color-sightedness works. I may not be literally colorblind myself, but my brother and maternal grandfather are, and I've got a fifty percent chance of being a carrier myself (I think that's how statistics work here?). Possibly worse, I'm the one who told my parents that my brother thought the sky was purple. I think I've learned a teensy bit about the condition by now. Enough to be able to tell people when they're using the term incorrectly, at least.
And trying to cast a unit of people as all the same color? Not colorblind; color-sighted. It's not that you can't tell the difference between racial white, yellow, red, brown, black; you clearly can. It's that you're either ignorant about the larger social implications (which I could forgive at the outset, but after all our efforts it's just willful) or you just. Don't. Care.
Oh, and by the way? I think you've conveniently forgotten about how you'd originally cast Jesse McCartney as Zuko. Which makes both the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation white - and that's if you ignore the fact that Noah Ringer isn't actually Asian, but just "[feels] mixed race with an Asian quality to him." Try chewing on that for a while.
Unamused and tired of your fucking bullshit,
Me
* For those who don't want to read unadulterated M. Night, M. Night vs. The Internet: The Airbender Mash-up is basically anti-casters vs M. Night point-by-point. It's pretty wicked, IMO.
Three responses to read, even if you skip everything else ever:
Roger Ebert's review (and possibly also FacePainting)
io9: M. Night Shyamalan Finally Made A Comedy
Dante Basco: The Last Airbender: To Boycott or Not?
Oh, and here's M. Night's response* to Parties Unnamed, AKA anyone who has a beef with the racial aspect of TLA's casting, AKA Racebending.com and supporters.
...Yeah, okay, I am definitely doing this.
Dear M. Night,
No. You don't get to claim that "I’m casting this entire movie in this color blind way where everyone is represented," when you also say, in the same interview, that "[W]hen Dev was cast as Zuko, I said, OK, I have to cast an Uncle Iroh that looks like his uncle."
That isn't how colorblindness works. That's how color-sightedness works. I may not be literally colorblind myself, but my brother and maternal grandfather are, and I've got a fifty percent chance of being a carrier myself (I think that's how statistics work here?). Possibly worse, I'm the one who told my parents that my brother thought the sky was purple. I think I've learned a teensy bit about the condition by now. Enough to be able to tell people when they're using the term incorrectly, at least.
And trying to cast a unit of people as all the same color? Not colorblind; color-sighted. It's not that you can't tell the difference between racial white, yellow, red, brown, black; you clearly can. It's that you're either ignorant about the larger social implications (which I could forgive at the outset, but after all our efforts it's just willful) or you just. Don't. Care.
Oh, and by the way? I think you've conveniently forgotten about how you'd originally cast Jesse McCartney as Zuko. Which makes both the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation white - and that's if you ignore the fact that Noah Ringer isn't actually Asian, but just "[feels] mixed race with an Asian quality to him." Try chewing on that for a while.
Unamused and tired of your fucking bullshit,
Me
* For those who don't want to read unadulterated M. Night, M. Night vs. The Internet: The Airbender Mash-up is basically anti-casters vs M. Night point-by-point. It's pretty wicked, IMO.
