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Originally Posted by Columbine
I appreciate it seems like an overblown reaction to what is basically a kid's film, but the controversy over the casting isn't 'completely stupid'. M. Shymalan took three ethnic minority heros and made them all Caucasian. It may be an anime, and facially they may not look like 'any specific race' but the characters still have strong associations in culture and clothing with certain races and those races aren't even remotely Caucasian. The fact that he made every other background character non-Caucasian is irrelevant; they're not the crux of the story, nor the overt heros. It's an especially poor thing to do when the whole of the story is about inter-ethnic group war and peace. And people really do care. In the anime, for once it's their face saving the world, but when the series finally gets some recognition, bam! that's taken away and given to Caucasians. Again. And right on the heels of the other Avatar controversy, and the Prince of Persia controversy. It's the third kick, and although it seems a relatively small thing, it's all part of something much bigger.
He might have got away with it if he'd cast one of the four main characters as Caucasion on a merit basis, but he cast all four (an even more glaring error compared to his deliberate choice of background cast) and then only by chance was Dev Patel cast as Zuko.
I don't know; to me M. Shymalan had the perfect chance to make a great film for kids with a minority hero, in contrast to all those hundreds of other films with caucasian heros, which would have then fitted with the original, very popular story, and might have actually gone beyond the mould. Now it's probably just going to flop.
For the record though, I don't think it was meant maliciously, like some people think; it was probably a case of standard hollywood pressure and the dim idea that white cast=money made at box office. Thoughtlessness, really.
Anyway I'm going to wait till it's out of box office before I see it; I'm not so fussed about seeing it soon or in 3D. By all accounts it's kind of blah story-wise, and it's not even aimed at my age-group so I probably will find it lacking.
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yea i'd have to agree with you for the most part. M Night was probably going for the different race thing like in the animated series, but since the animated series deals mostly with different races within the asian people, he probably thought to relate it to the world, but went in the wrong way. The main problem being him not thinking of the air nation and water nation being different nations, or it not mattering. Instead he made the water tribe white and aang white. he probably was being pressured into stronger diversification so he hired a famous person of another ethnicity: Dev Patel. So then he cast him as prince zuko and made the fire nation dark skinned and it all went down hill.
As for M Night Shyamalan saying he's not racist because he's indian, I think thats crap. anyone can be racist. not just whites. thats completely insane. you dont get a get out of jail free card just for being darker skinned.
My main reason for being angry at the whole racism thing is that its only racist if you think it is now. Its not like he's paying dev patel less, or the white actors more. He picked his cast originally based on their acting abilities. chances are he didnt mean anything against any races. people. its only racist of you make it out to be.