signal boost: why I will not be seeing the Avatar live-action movie

[coraa]

For more, see: http://www.racebending.com

Whitewashing: not a pretty thing.

(For another example, see Ain't That A Shame, Justine Larbalestier's post about how one of her books, with an African American protagonist, was published with a cover depicting that character as white. Note that this was over her protest; authors don't get much say on book covers.)

In happier news, coffeeandink is hosting the Book Re-Covery Program, a repository for fan-created alternative/reimagined covers for books -- "Covers with people of color on them. Covers with cool but not stereotypical designs. Covers that demonstrate the diversity and richness that's already inside the text, or that reimagine white texts as more diverse, male-dominated texts as more feminist." I'm watching with interest, and may try my hand at a few, even though I'm not very good with graphics.

Comments

[erik]

Well that's sure not OK.

[coraa]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I really want to see the original Avatar series, but the movie? Oh hell no. No way I am financially rewarding that.

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the controversy around the Earthsea miniseries a few years back. At least in that case LeGuin spoke up against the whitewashing.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know -- haven't heard -- how the original creators of Avatar feel about it; the movie is being done by M. Night Shyamalan, who didn't have anything to do with the original cartoon to the best of my knowledge. I wouldn't suspect that the original series creators are thrilled, as apparently all the interesting cultural flavor is being drained out of the movie (in addition to whitening all the good-guy protagonists, they've done things like get rid of the original series calligrapher and replace the accurate Chinese calligraphy from the original series with nonsense symbols), but I haven't heard anything. (I have heard almost entirely good things about the original tv series, and it's on my list of things to seek out and watch more of.)

Larbalestier gets big points in my book for speaking out and saying that she didn't like what her publisher did with the cover -- a potential risk for her; if they decide she's a troublemaker they might not pick up her next book.

Bleh.

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing good things as well. If only we could manage to get together often enough, I'd love to watch it as a group.

[canis-ridens.livejournal.com]

Wow, the Avatar actor choices are extremely obnoxious. It's not even like it's based on a book where the character's races are never mentioned- there are existing visual references as to how they're supposed to look!

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And not only is it obvious that Katara and Sokka are supposed to be dark-skinned, the characters are distinctly culturally nonwhite too. Those two come from an invented culture that is clearly alternate-Inuit; the bad guy up there is from a culture with strong flavors of Japan, and the main protagonist (not pictured, because he's pretty light-skinned and also bald and therefore less of a contrast, but also played by a white actor) is from a culture that appears to be Tibetan. So the characters, in a visual medium, are clearly not white -- and the cultural influences are not European -- and still, we get white casting.

It's just -- argh! It's not like there aren't plenty of movies coming out every year with young white protagonists, that we have to turn this one into one!

[paperclippy.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Although not really a valid comparison because it has nothing to do with race I am reminded of the horrible butchering done to The Dark is Rising to turn it into a movie. (Loving family? Forget that, they hate each other! Kid who is wise beyond his years? Skip it, make him a whiny brat who wants special powers to make him "cool." Plot with zero romantic interests? Let's make the main character have a crush on one of the bad guys!) I admit, I didn't see the movie because the previews were so awful, but it made me really mad that they would take one of my favorite childhood books and completely screw it up until it wasn't even recognizable as an adaptation of that book.

My point being that people who adapt things to movies are often total morons, and not just about race. Not that that makes it any better.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think -- I get really annoyed when someone ruins a book too, but I think this one passes from 'annoyed' into 'offended' (and also 'angry') for me, because it's not just stupidity. It was, if you look into their casting call information, a deliberate decision to recast the characters as white -- to take one of relatively few series in the US with predominantly nonwhite protagonists (vs. white protagonists with one or two token nonwhites), and turn it into one of many movies with white actors. It just. Argh.

[2gouda4u.livejournal.com]

People are dumb. It makes me sad.

I wish we were all subjected to more skin color diversity on a day-to-day basis. I know I suffer from my largely Asian/Indian/Caucasian-only interactions, in that I fall into stupid unintentional stereotyping when I see someone outside of those categories, even though I know better :-( (and no, that's not directly related to your post, but is tangential)

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think what really gets me on this one is that I don't think it's just stupidity. It was clearly a deliberate decision, not just an unthinking one. It's out-and-out offensive, to me.

I actually do think your point is relevant -- while it's obviously best to have friends and acquaintances who are diverse, because segregation in general is not a good thing, I believe that there's some evidence that reading/watching/otherwise exposing yourself to media positively depicting (and/or written/produced by) people who are not like you can also help undermine stereotypes and increase tolerance. (Granted, it has to be an intelligent portrayal -- stereotyped depictions don't help anything -- but I guess that's part of the point.) When all anybody sees in the movies, on TV, on book covers is other white people, it promotes a feeling that white is the 'norm.' Which is not good.

[http://users.livejournal.com/greensleeves_/]

I'm surprised M. Night Shyamalan didn't have more to say about the whitewashing, considering that he's of Indian descent. Of course it would be bad for his job if he was badmouthing the studio that pays his bills, but still... show a little spine, man! :P

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know how much say he had -- but one of the most depressing things about it is that the whitening was apparently deliberate and established early in the process. The casting calls for these characters asked for 'Caucasian or other ethnicity.' Not 'Asian (or Native American, as appropriat) or other ethnicity.' Not 'Any ethnicity.' Caucasian first. (And, indeed, originally they had an all-white cast, with Zuko played by blonde, blue-eyed Jesse McCartney. But McCartney had to back out, and so they replaced one character, the bad guy, with a non-white actor. AUGH.)

It's just. Disheartening. I don't know who precisely to blame, but I'm disappointed that nobody stepped in and said 'This isn't right' -- or perhaps they did, but clearly the powerful voices were not in agreement, and that's why I'm genuinely hoping the movie doesn't succeed.

[ceph.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'd read about this before, but that image gets the issue across in a thoroughly blunt and efficient way.

It is incredibly frustrating.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I had been wanting to say something about it, and then the images started popping up on my flist -- and they said what I wanted to say so much more succinctly and gut-punchingly than I could have said it, so I posted right away.

It's just, yeah. Picture worth a thousand (righteously angry) words.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

(I suppose the up side to this is that hearing all the interesting cultural things in the series that were stripped from the movie makes me very eager to watch the series! I've heard tremendously good things about it.)

[ceph.livejournal.com]

This is true! Not to be totally Alaska-centric about it or anything, but the Inuit don't get enough media love.

[porfinn.livejournal.com]

I really liked the first season of Avatar (I intend to get around to the rest of it on of these days). It was pretty neat! (good story, interesting characters, and really neat background) I was pretty cynical about a live-action version. I consider my cynicism a very bad habit, and it really doesn't need more positive reinforcement. Shame on Hollywood yet again.