Some TLA linkblogging, and an open letter

[soc_puppet]

Well. 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.

Comments

[semiramis.livejournal.com]

If your brother--full blooded?--is affected, then that means your mother is a carrier, which means you have a 50/50 chance of being a carrier as well thanks to the gene being on the X chromosome. If your father were affected, then you'd have a 100% chance of being a carrier. If it wasn't a sex-linked trait and your brother was affected but your parents weren't, then you'd have a 1/3 chance of not being a carrier, given the assumption you weren't affected yourself.

...also I think M. Night is just kind of. Trying to get metaphorical N-word privileges to go further than they can reasonably go. Just because you're part of the group in question doesn't mean that being ignorant about it is acceptable. Particularly if you're doing it in such a public way, cripes.

Also also, I didn't want to say this in racebending for fear of being skewered, but I still think Dante Basco, awesome as he is, is a bit old to play Zuko by now. He's, what, 35ish?

[soc_puppet]

Yes, full-blooded. I'm nearly positive that it's the X-linked one, since it does go Maternal Grandfather → Mother → Son, Dad isn't affected, and, to the best of my knowledge, I'm not either. Individually, that puts me at 50/50 chances, but I thought it was a little different for if there was another individual in the mix? IDK, it's been too long since I've taken any statistics.

Exactly! Being a member of a marginalized group does not give you a free pass for shitting on said marginalized group.

If he can still pass as a teenager when you squint, I'm sure Hollywood doesn't care ^^a That said, I certainly wouldn't mind if the role went to a different up-and-coming young Asian American actor - though it would be cool if he could still get some role on the show. Someone in the comments of his post suggested young!Roku, for example.

[semiramis.livejournal.com]

Another person? Do you mean your brother? Because if so, it's not--the two events of inheritance are independent from one another. But since your brother is color-blind, that means your mom has at least one color-blind gene, but since she isn't color-blind herself, that means she also has a sighted gene, which means, when your mother has a child, that child has a 1/2 probability of inheriting either the color-blind or the color-sighted copy. Since your father is color-sighted, this means he doesn't have the blind variant, his children all have a 1/1 chance of inheriting the sighted gene from him, assuming they're girls. 1/1 * 1/2 = 1/2, so all of your parents' real or theoretical female children (do you have sisters?) have 1/2 chance of being a carrier.

...he doesn't at all to me :|a I almost think he looks older than he actually is from some angles. But young Roku would be a good fit for him! I would buy him as Ozai, too, although he's a touch young for that role.

[soc_puppet]

Yes, my brother. And that's what I thought, except someone else once told me 25%, and I got all confused and also I have low self-esteem. But yeah, I figured it was the sex-linked one. (Only the one brother.) ANYWAY, from now on, I'm sticking to my 50% guns.

*shrugs?* Hollywood tries to sell a lot of shit; I think it's commendable that you are less prone to buying. I'd also buy him as a particularly ambitious Zhao, I think - a little young for original!Zhao, but pump up the already pumped ambition a little more, and I could see it. Plus, no kids to worry about :3b It would limit his appearances somewhat, but since we didn't really get a good look at Ozai until, what, the third season? I don't think it would be that big a difference.

[semiramis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the other person was confused. Wikipedia has useful infographics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:X_recessive_carrier_mother.svg).

Alas, what could have been!

[soc_puppet]

Perhaps they were thinking, "When you were conceived, you had a one-in-four chance of being a female carrier, as opposed to anything else".

I'm still hoping somewhat weakly for a reboot in which they get things right.

[semiramis.livejournal.com]

M-maybe? WHO KNOWS

Yeah I hope so. At the very least, though, this thing is clearly tanking spectacularly with the race issue very visible among the complaints, so hopefully Hollywood will get a clue.

[soc_puppet]

I should stop here, or I'll "Maybe they were thinking" myself to death ^^a

So true ♥ I hope a lot of films and stuff get really diverse casting as a result. And then I will spend money on them, and hopefully Hollywood will get the @#$%@#$%# message already.