Race Bending - I'm Starting to Be Okay With It.

[Keith Justice]

I'm watching Avatar the Last Airbender and I remember the controversy over the mixing up of races.

I don't think Sakka and that chick are Asian actually... and to have the Ice Tribe be Nordic... seems alright.

Ang seems pretty racially ambiguous as does the actor playing him.

Am I missing something here?

I guess the Fire Empire is so far the only ones that're clearly Asian.

What do you think?

 

[The 2nd Evil]

Aang's actor appears to have come of Asian descent. Not full blooded, but mixed.

 

[MattComix]

Eh. I think there's a lot of movies where you can go see a white kid as a protagonist. There's nothing wrong with a white kid as a protagonist BUT I think Avatar would have been a very genuine opportunity for something different.

Also while Ang may look white in terms of design just like how some anime characters may look white it's not really likely that is what he's intended to be. My feeling from watching the show is that he's based on Asians in Tibet. I don't see any real need to cast a white kid for that role.

 

[Dark Kabuto]

Though I could honestly care less about this movie(Not an Avatar fan to be honest) I can say that I don't have a problem either, so long as the actor they picked does the character well and fits the character will.

 

[Impulse87]

I'm watching Avatar the Last Airbender and I remember the controversy over the mixing up of races.

I don't think Sakka and that chick are Asian actually... and to have the Ice Tribe be Nordic... seems alright.

Ang seems pretty racially ambiguous as does the actor playing him.

Am I missing something here?

I guess the Fire Empire is so far the only ones that're clearly Asian.

What do you think?

actually the ice tribe live up in the north, so logically they should look more like the inuit people not freakishly pale folks.

 

[Lynxara]

I've read a weird thing, I don't know how legit this is, that Shyamalan is making the Northern water tribe Nordic and the Southern water tribe dark-skinned pseudo Inuit like the original Katara and Sokka. (He's also apparently changed Sokka into an almost completely different character.)

Shyamalan said explicitly that he felt the original cartoon characters had no real race because they were drawn in an ambiguous style that invited viewers to imagine whatever they pleased. He said he made the Fire Tribe into pseudo-Indians as a present for his daughter, because Zuko was her favorite character.

Rumor has it that the Earth Nation will remain based on China so Toph's actress should be from Southeast Asia. It's not clear what will be done with the pseudo-Japanese characters or if they'll even appear in the films. Regarding Aang, you really could cast him as whatever and as long as the kid knows martial arts, it'll work.

There's never been much controversy over the casting of Aang. People are specifically angry that the show's main dark-skinned characters (Sokka and Katara) were turned into white-skinned characters. I think people would've been less upset if the characters had been played by even Hispanic or black actors.

 

[Keith Justice]

Ah, that make sense.

 

[Blue Saint]

Actually I think the issue is that the entire production just doesn't seem to care and the race bending is just the most obvious symptom of that. And you can even claim that the Fire Nation is being race bended, the Fire Nation having been modeled more off East and Southeast Asian influences yet being played by actors of Persian, Indian, and Māori descent. Also the Water tribe was always meant to be based off the Eskimos, a group of indigenous cultures (including the Inuit) that are spread across Russia, North America and Greenland and having the actors they have gotten to play Sokka and Katara is similar to having them play character based off of Native American culture.

The fact of the matter is that is almost definitely not going to live up the series and will end up being horrible anyway just due to Shyamalan directing.

 

[VengeanceGOD]

He's said in interviews before that he was concerned with the acting of the four main characters first, then the actual "race" of the individual kingdoms. So, for example, once he cast Dev Patel he made the Fire Nation Indian.

*shrug* I've never had a real problem with it. Like has been said before - Aang is ambiguous, and I don't know if there's enough Inuit actors in the world to play the Water Tribe.

 

[Keith Justice]

I do like Dev Patel as Zuko. I'm hoping I catch my stride in the show and gun through it before the movie hits.

LOVING the trailers.