As we reported here at Blog@ earlier in the month, the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender film — despite being a series inspired by Asian and Inuit culture — being cast primarily with white actors.
However, Derek Kirk Kim has a really eloquent post explaining why, as an Asian man, he is so upset with the casting decision. Here’s a choice quote:
You can read the rest of the post here. The petition at the bottom has gotten some big-name supporters, including Steve Lieber and Dark Horse associate editor Samantha Robertson.
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
What surprises me is that they felt the need to cast the movie like they did. Avatar has a large fan base. The studio doesn’t need to stick in a big name star to attract an audience.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Mecha you hit that right on the nose…and I am going to sign the petition now
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
the Avater casting is annoying. i was okay with Dragonball simply on the fact that Goku is technically an alien and in a volume of Dragonball, despite the book being influenced by a Chinese story, Toriyama claimed he didn’t give the series a specific location.
but Avatar… yeah… that casting is stupid and more annoying everytime i think about it.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:27 am
I feel the same as C. Towns. Dragonball didn’t really bother me, but this Avatar casting is ridiculous.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
The casting is ridiculous, both in terms of the lack of Asian actors, and by simply who they’re casting. Jesse Freakin’ McCartney??? As Zuko??? Zuko’s a total badass, and they’re going with some teen pop idol? W.T.F.
My family and I are huge fans of the Avatar TV show, but the casting of this movie has us not the least bit interested in going to see it. Even if they’re wise enough to recast it, I don’t trust Shaymalan to make a good movie of Avatar. The show was great as it was, and I don’t see how condensing the saga down to three movies can be as good.
Anyhow, I’ll happily sign the petition.