Daily Show/Colbert Report fanfic to follow eventually?

[soc_puppet]

Here we are, Wednesday, March 18th, and once again I have gone an entire week without posting. GO ME.

Someone remind me tomorrow to talk about giant squid and intelligent design. 'Cuz I stayed up late last night to watch a special about colossal squid which had some incidental giant squid info that was somewhat hilarious when I thought about it. (Also, Humboldt squid are awesome.)

MORE IMPORTANTLY! For those of you not following the news as closely as I am (which, admittedly, I am not following as closely as I could be, either), there have been more casting choices announced for the Avatar live action fail fest adaptation. I have... mixed feelings. I mean, on the one hand, the color/race-as-nation line has been more blatantly drawn now, which is more depressing the longer I think about it. On the other hand, at least the rumors that Shyamalan had been planning to cast himself as Iroh have now been thoroughly shot down. Gotta take the small comforts where you can, I guess.

In light of the recent casting announcement, of course, I have decided that it is finally time I put pencil to paper and attempt to write a short Daily Show fan segment (and get that Colbert Report fic out of my head while I'm at it ^^a). Because clearly, this is bigger than a Back in Black short now.

Comments

[girlquinn.livejournal.com]

Uh... are there any East Asians anywhere?

And since they're changing the nationalities a little bit, are they changing the culture too? Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom had East Asian clothing and architecture, so is the Fire Nation going to look more South Asian or Middle Eastern or what? Now I'm just confused, haha.

[soc_puppet]

I'm under the assumption that they're grouping East Asians in with North Asians and West Asians in with South Asians, but I could well be wrong.

Oh God, now that you've brought that up, suddenly the casting takes on a yet more sinister turn. It could have been intentional. "Hey, let's make the bad guys middle-eastern! That way, the American audience will be able to relate to the good guys more! Never mind all the flak Hollywood's gotten for its irrational and over-the-top blanket villainization of middle-easterners already, we've got bad politics to promote!"

This is. Really not a good trend here, guys.

[gateddiscord.livejournal.com]

Just my two cents here... I know you're big on all that equality stuff, but I personally think you're reading too much into this. They might have casted the main characters first with who they thought would be the best that they could get (even if they don't know anything about the series or anything), and they didn't want Zuko (for example) to be the only non-white guy in a race of white folk.

Also, I checked on IMDB and Cliff Curtis (the guy who is casted as Fire Lord Ozai) is... wait for it... WHITE. (How he's the only white guy in a nation of asians/middle easterners, IDK but w/e) -Which, last I checked, totally debunks your "they're casting white people as the good guys and not white people as the bad guys" theory.

Yes, they cast Katara and Sokka as white, instead of african-american (or whatever you see them as), and yes, they're casting non whites as everyone else. But that could just be because, at auditions, or when they went around and asked, Nicola Peltz, and Jackson Rathbone said yes.

You enjoyed the show so much, I'm sorry to see that you're not going to enjoy the movie.

[soc_puppet]

WARNING: The entirety of this reply is acting under the assumption that you would like to not walk around without pants.


Okay, for a start, I'd like to point you to the Aang Ain't White/Racebending press release. Next, just about any of the "Why We're Doing This" links here would be good (I've even used several in my bullet points).

In no particular order:

* In the casting call for the leads, the descriptions specified a preference for Caucasian actors. Frankly, in the movie business (and Hollywood acting in general), unless race is specified, actors of color have learned to assume the call is going out to white actors.

* Because the setting of the source material is about as blatantly Asian/Inuit as you can get, it would make sense to cast the characters accordingly.

* Between the first two points, this makes it an even bigger deal when roles that should logically go to actors of color, who would have trouble finding other parts, especially if they don't want to be horribly troped or stereotyped, have been largely given to white actors, who would likely have no trouble getting similar roles in other venues.

* There are, in fact, plenty of competent Asian American actors in the US. I'm more willing to compromise on the Water Tribe casting, since I'm pretty sure Inuit actors are a little bit harder to find, let alone transport to Texas for the initial casting call, but I'm sure we still have a descent number of Native American actors in the US - or at least actors who are something other than white. (I'd prefer medium brown, but I'd gladly go darker if it meant we eliminated lighter as an option.)

* Quoting Ciderpress for the emotional point: "During our early Christmas dinner this weekend, the oldest of the nephews, who is 13, brought up the subject of the incredibly white child actors that had been picked for the film version. The three of them were confused and disappointed but unable to articulate exactly why. Then the youngest, all of 7 years old, asked me whether this meant that he couldn't be Aang when he played Avatar with his friends from now on."
I find it extremely difficult to justify robbing children of heroes they can sympathize with, especially when they have so few to start with.

* To quote Rathbone: "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
Translation: a white boy can play the part of a person of color better than a person of color can.

* Paraphrasing Yuki-onna: Stories teach us to survive. In writing us (the women, GLBT, people of color - basically anyone not a heterosexual white male) out of the stories, society is telling us that we have no place in the world, that we have no right to live here.


The TL;DR version: Yeah, I'm sorry I'm not going to enjoy the movie, too. And I hope you'll consider sticking to a pirated version if you feel like watching it yourself.

[soc_puppet]

In response to your specific points:

1) I didn't know that about Cliff Curtis. However, I now wouldn't be surprised if he ended up brownfaced for the movie.

2) Lord Ozai plays a significantly smaller role in the first part of the series than does Admiral Zhao.

3) Given that the previous choice for Zuko, Jesse McCartney, had at one point expressed his disappointment that he would not be able to make tour dates due to the training schedule for The Last Airbender, and then later this schedule conflict was sited as the reason for him leaving the cast, I'm willing to speculate this is half just an excuse to cast a token Asian character and try to appease the unruly masses. That is to say, with the original casting? Patel wouldn't have been the only person of color in an otherwise all-white heroic group. The group would have been entirely white.

See my other response for more in-depth reasoning. And I didn't even begin to cover the possible whys and wherefores of Shyamalan.

[gateddiscord.livejournal.com]

You make valid points, and I will admit that I probably shouldn't have been saying anything since I didn't do quite as much research as huge fans have done (I liked it, yes, but that was it).

Yes, it's unfortunate, but I still don't think that anything will be changed just because "hundreds of letters" will be mailed in, or a petition will be "hand delivered". Yes, emails and petitions can be ignored, but so can snail mail letters, especially once they see how many they're getting about hating the Avatar movie. (Although, props for giving the failing postal service a boost!)

In response to your second point, Ozai does have a smaller role, and maybe he wasn't the emperor when the fire nation first attacked, but isn't he kind of the whole reason for the show? I would call that a pretty major role.

It's sad to see that the only people who would go see this movie and enjoy it don't want anything to do with it (except in a negative light). Who knows? It might end up being a good movie despite any casting problems.

I'm not saying that what they did was right. But I'm not saying that what they did was wrong, either. I just think that you're all blowing things way out of proportion. Maybe, once you guys start doing this for every movie like this, I'll hop on the bandwagon, but for now, it just seems hypocritical and shallow. It's like you all are saying "Oh, I don't care how they cast anything but the movies about things I like".

[soc_puppet]

I think it would be overly optimistic to assume that they're going to change the casting because of us, especially since they've already started filming, but it would be nice to get the issue more attention at least.

Point acknowledged; allow me to re-word it as "appears significantly less on-screen". Although I would also argue that a good half the reason for the show, if not more, can be traced back to Fire Lord Sozin, who actually started the whole Fire Nation For World Domination campaign.

Even if it is a good movie, I don't think I'll be able to get past my issues to see it as one :/ (Though if they actually don't brown- or yellowface Curtis, I might give it a shot.)

As to your last point, I would like to shamefully admit that it was this casting decision which opened my eyes to the US' continued institutionalized racism in the first place; while I can't swear I'll be putting this much energy into every movie that comes out, it's definitely something I'll be complaining about whenever I see it in the future.

[gateddiscord.livejournal.com]

I'd probably go see it in a theater, but when it comes out on dvd, we can rent/borrow it and watch it and make fun of it?

[soc_puppet]

I'd really rather avoid spending money on it, if possible, so I guess borrowing would work? I believe I already mentioned piracy ;)