What’s color got to do with it? Part one-racebending.com’s reaction to The Last Airbender

A few days ago, I uploaded a story about racebending.com and the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA)’ s campaign against apparent “whitewashing” that took place in the casting for The Last Airbender. I had a chance to speak with Lorraine Sammy and Marissa Lee, public relations coordinators for racebending.com

MONIQUEBLOG-May you outline the controversy behind The Last Airbender?

LORAINE SAMMY-On December 9th 2008, the lead roles were cast for M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming film The Last Airbender and all of them were originally cast as white actors.

The Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender, on which this film is based, featured Asian characters in a fantasy setting inspired and informed by a variety of Asian cultures. The characters fight with East Asian martial arts, have Asian features, dress in clothing from Asian cultures, and write with Chinese characters. The cast and setting were a refreshing departure from predominantly white American media, and were a large part of the show’s appeal as well as an inspiration to many Asian American children.

As fans of the original television show, we still hold the highest level of respect for the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series and its culturally nuanced depiction of an Asian fantasy world. We desperately want to support The Last Airbender film, but we cannot in good conscience support its current incarnation and the generations of Hollywood discrimination it represents.

MARISSA LEE- My radar was piqued in August 2008 when casting sides asked for “Caucasian or any other ethnicity” rather than “all ethnicities may submit” or “Asian,” given Nickelodeon, the creators of Avatar Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino, and M. Night Shyamalan have always advertised Avatar as set in an Asian fantasy world. Then in December, they announced that all four leads would be played by Caucasian actors.Things started rolling from there. A lot of fans and even members of the general public wrote letters, including The East West Players and MANAA. They were ignored, with the exception of MANAA, which had to follow up for weeks before receiving a generic response.

Adding fuel to the fire, members of the production like actor Jackson Rathbone and casting director Dee Dee Rickets have made some pretty culturally ignorant statements. The production did end up casting non-white actors as members of the tyrannical Fire Nation, but that just worried us even more–now there’s a clear divide. Out of all of the main characters, now the heroes are white and the villains are brown.

And the concepts behind The Last Airbender — the idea of an Avatar, the ‘four elements,’ ‘martial arts,’ etc. are all still distinctly taken from the cultures of the pacific rim. This is reflected in the setting–filming has taken place at a Japanese pagoda–and production design. Not only are we troubled by the “whitewashing”–which a lot of people view as modern day yellowface–we feel this also sends the message that Hollywood will willingly appropriate Asian culture, while continuing to deny meaningful roles to Asian American actors.

Katara and Sokka’s fictional culture are inspired by the Inuit/Eskimo/Yupik people of Greenland, North America, and Siberia. The production even filmed in Greenland, where 85% of the population is Inuit. It is the equivalent of a movie casting white people to play African characters, while filming in Africa.

MB-Why do you and other members of the Asian community feel so strongly about the casting choices in this movie?

LS-In this day and age, casting white actors to play Asian characters–even going so far as to “whitewash” the Asian fantasy setting—is simply ignorant and unacceptable. When it comes to Hollywood, people of color have constantly been side-lined and relegated to roles that enable invisibility and non-inclusiveness, such as sidekicks, extras and villains. The Last Airbender movie is just one of the most recent instances of this happening and people just became tired of seeing it happen over and over.

The best part about our protest is that it’s not just the Asian community who feel strongly about it, nor is it just ‘an Asian problem’. Our protesters come from all races, cultures and nationalities – East Asian, [Southeast] Asian, Native American, Hispanic, African-American, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, Jewish and many more – and we all feel that it’s time to have Asian-Americans in an Asian-American movie.

ML-People all over the world were shocked and offended, not just Asian Americans. We are upset because of lost opportunities for disadvantaged minorities and Hollywood, and also because there was an air of condescension around these casting choices.

These characters were one of the very few ethnically East Asian and Inuit/Yupik lead roles available for young actors in Hollywood. While the actors cast to play these Asian characters will have more opportunities to play white characters in the future, Asian American actors won’t. When the excuse used is “these guys were the best actors for the part,” it also sends the message that Hollywood thinks white actors are better at portraying, or more entitled to, playing Asians in film.

MB-Why do you think Paramount and/or M. Night Shyamalan chose white actors to portray non-white parts? Also, why do you think they chose actors like Dev Patel and Aasif Mandvi for the Fire Nation roles? (Personally, I feel like it’s a bit like they’re still trying to protray “evil” as dark-colored skin; even though the aforementioned acotrs are Asian, they don’t represent the ethnic background of Zuko and the other Fire Nation members).

ML-I don’t work for the production so I can’t speak for them; I can only speculate. I don’t think bigotry or maliciousness is the primary motivating factor. It has to be greed. In this economy, franchise movies like The Last Airbender are a gravy train. Viacom has said they are hoping Avatar will be their next Harry Potter.

I think they were genuinely worried–perhaps wrongly so–that white audiences are not ready to accept an all-Asian cast. At the same time, since Hollywood has not bothered to develop much young Asian American talent, in order to draw in young girls with name brand actors they would have to pick famous people like Rathbone and Jesse McCarthy.

Maybe they haven’t caught on that children in 2009 are more progressive, or that movies that discriminate may not last long on DVD shelves in the long run.

Against all expectations, Slumdog Millionaire became a success while The Last Airbender was facing criticism over its all-white cast. Casting Dev Patel certainly accomplished many things. Since he replaced Jesse McCartney, they were able to remove the most maligned casting selection from their film. They were also able to capitalize on the fact that Patel’s ethnicity makes the cast of the other three slightly less egregious. Patel also brings more attention to the film, and Shyamalan did say he wanted to work with Patel.

For Iroh and Ozai, Zuko’s relatives, they certainly needed actors who could pass for the same ethnicity as Patel–hence actors of Iranian and Maori descent. As for Mandvi, well, he’s again a high profile South Asian actor due to his work on The Daily Show. It seems the production took more risks on unknown white actors than unknown Asian American actors.

LS-Contrary to popular belief, the producers did NOT have a colorblind casting and therefore just end up with the best actors for the role. Their casting sheets for the four lead roles explicitly state a preference for ‘Caucasian or any other ethnicity’. Instead of saying ‘Any ethnicity’, the producers started out with a discriminatory bias.

Why? There is an on-going impression in Hollywood that their target audience they need to cater movies to – particularly children’s movies – are ignorant, complacent and unused to seeing anything different from ‘the norm’. Their marke research tells that that by only catering this supposed lowest common denominator can they make the most amount of revenue.

Even though movies like Slumdog Millionaire and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – both world-renowned internationally made movies – blow this myth out of the water, studios like Paramount Pictures don’t see the point in risking an investment in diversity for a somewhat obscure franchise. To Paramount Pictures, The Last Airbender is exactly that – something high-octane and superficial to be shoved out of the studios in the hopes that children’s parents will buy into not just the movie, but all the merchandise that will undoubtedly surface around it.

I can’t honestly say why they replaced Jesse McCartney with Dev Patel, but it find it interesting that they cited McCartney’s ‘scheduling conflicts’ only two days after he’d done an interview discussing his role in The Last Airbender. Keep in mind that this was two months after the racebending protest started and was getting press.

However, the move to do so, in some ways, made the casting even worse. Now we have a character and his relatives from the villainous, genocidal nation cast as brown-skinned people, fighting against white-washed heroic characters/nations. The irony is twofold:

1) Two of the heroes (siblings from the Water Tribe) were originally brown-skinned in the cartoon. They are now played by white actors.

2) Dev Patel’s character is later redeemed only after he is forgiven by the (now) white heroes.

MB-Did you expect an Asian director like M. Night Shyamalan to be more sensitive to the issue of whitewashing? Did you expect him to chose actors that represented the characters correctly, or do you think Paramount influenced his casting decisions?

LS-I can honestly say I did. Particularly because he even mentions in an interview with Sci FI Wire that he first considered directing the movie after his own daughter wanted to play Katara.

Once the casting was released, I quickly realized that M Night Shyamalan was not entirely responsible for choosing this cast. Of course there was pressure from Paramount Pictures and the Kennedy/Marshall Production Company. At this point, I see the fault laying more with the Producers than I do with the Director.

ML-I think it’s a logical fallacy to expect Shyamalan to avoid “whitewashing” simply because he is also Asian. Frankly, “whitewashing” is an offensive practice that has no place in modern Hollywood. I would hope that all filmmakers–regardless of their ethnicity–with any sense of professionalism or foresight would know to avoid it!

I thought the film would reflect sensitive attention to cultural competency–including their staff of Asian cultural consultants–of the animated series. The irony is that initially, the characters in the film were meant to be ethnically Asian, just like they were in the show. We found a leaked copy of the film’s concept trailer showing the main characters of Katara and Sokka with dark skin. Somewhere down the line, a key decision-maker decided to make their characters white instead.

MB- What do you make of stars like Margaret Cho denouncing the movie? Do you think this will cause any change in how Hollywood casts its movies?

LS-I was extremely thrilled that she went public about her feelings on The Last Airbender movie. It not only promotes further awareness, but I think her being vocal also helps other celebrities and Hollywood people see that it’s bring brought to the limelight.

I know we’re not the only ones who are lobbying for change. Groups like MANAA and the East West Players have been fighting Hollywood’s discrimination for years – some battles are one, others duly ignored. I think The Last Airbender protest is an opportunity to take this decades-long battle even further, if only by spreading awareness in Hollywood’s audience.

ML-You know, throughout this protest we have had the opportunity to correspond with many prominent Asian American actors and their representatives. Many of these actors have privately given us their support, but they are afraid to actually speak out against these casting decisions. They are afraid of being accused of doing so because of their own self interest. Shockingly enough, they are even afraid of being blacklisted by Paramount and other studios for speaking out! We quickly learned that they cannot speak out without substantial personal risk. They are already struggling to find jobs. When even a film based on the blatantly Asian inspired Avatar series will discriminate against them, can you blame them?

While Margaret Cho and East West Players (whose members include George Takei, Dante Basco, and many other voice actors from the animated series) have spoken out, I think it is really the public who can force Hollywood to change. We can refuse to support movies when their productions blatantly indicate a preference for white actors to play characters of color.

MB-This film could’ve been a huge vehicle to introduce some brand new Asian actors onto the Hollywood scene. What do you think the impact of this movie could’ve been, had Asian actors been cast to portray the characters?

ML-This is the opportunity Paramount missed. They could have set an amazing precedent.

Back in 1915, a struggling motion picture company called the Famous Players-Lasky signed a contract for Japanese American actor Sessue Hayakawa. They made history. Hayakawa was Hollywood’s first Asian American leading man and he went on to be nominated for an Oscar. Almost a century later, Famous Players-Lasky is known as Paramount Pictures. Kind of ironic, huh?

A culturally competent cast in The Last Airbender could have created some new stars and really raised the self esteem of children of color. Rather than following the gravy train of progress that Disney has been joyriding on for the past few years (franchises with lead actors of color, princesses of color,) Paramount is stubbornly clinging to obsolete Hollywood casting practices. Rather than being viewed as a film with progressive casting practices, now The Last Airbender looks like it was cast by ignorant businessmen.

LS-I think it would have been amazing. It’s extremely rare to see an Asian-American actor in a lead, heroic role, particularly for a movie that’s being touted as a children’s fantasy-genre epic. There aren’t many fantasy-based mainstream American movies that aren’t based in a Euro-centric world. The Avatar series was a rare chance to cast Asian people in an Asian-based fantasy world.

For children to see Asian-American heroes in a movie would have made a huge impact. We may feel that children are colorblind, but they’re not – they are indoctrinated from an early age with media and social perceptions of race. Children of color are especially made aware of their skin color and how different they are from the people they see on TV, in movies, commercials, comic books and magazines.

MB-Generally, it’s tough for all minorities to find quality acting roles, and many roles have been whitewashed throughout Hollywood history. Because of this, have you had any other minorities come out in support of your cause?

LS-We have! From a wonderfully wide range of people of color, not just from North America, but also worldwide. We have had a lot of support from Caucasians as well, who feel insulted that Hollywood has seen fit to white-wash an Asian world under the assumption that that’s what white audiences feel most comfortable watching.

ML- Like Lori[Loraine] said, people from all sorts of different backgrounds have come out in support for our cause. And not just ethnic minorities in the United States, but also people from countries scattered all around the world. In a recent survey we took, one out of every four respondents was someone from outside the United States.

People may also think that only ethnic minorities care about this issue, but according to our survey, 60% of the people against the cast of this movie identify as white or Caucasian. Many wrote that they feel insulted since these casting decisions seem to pander to a white audience that Paramount thinks is too ignorant to accept heroes of color.

Another interesting statistic we got from the survey was that 12% of the respondents said they were of mixed ethnicity. I think this is a trend that Paramount is foolish to ignore. The most powerful man in the country, President Obama, is of mixed ethnicity. I think it’s sad that in 2009, the children, and the general public, are more accepting of heroes of color than Paramount is.

MB-Any parting thoughts?

ML-Sure! We’re really trying to spread awareness about this issue and open up dialogue about why these casting decisions are problematic and culturally ignorant. Our supporters tend to get shut down a lot. Sometimes it’s by fans who view us as traitors to the franchise, or from people who think that racism is over. I hope that even if people disagree with us, that they at least try to understand where we are coming from. And I want to cheer on the people who are fearlessly speaking up and calling Paramount out for what they did. Continue drawing attention to this topic. Dialogue always helps.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was a unique and culturally progressive animated series, starring Mako, one of only two Asian American actors to be nominated for an Oscar. Mako passed away in 2006, but spent his entire career facing down and fighting these kinds of discriminatory casting practices. Avatar is an important part of his legacy, and I genuinely feel we can work together to make The Last Airbender the last time this has to happen, again. We can show the producers of this movie that they do not have our fan or financial support.

LS-Thank you for talking about this. One of our main priorities isn’t simply focussed on protesting and boycotting this film, but also to just spread awareness and help people to realize that American does not mean white, nor should it be the default for the fantasy genre. Hollywood should be held accountable for purposeful discrimination.

If all goes well, part two, MANAA’s reaction to The Last Airbender, will be up shortly. For more information about the controversy and the groups involved, go to racebending.com and manaa.org.

Tags: The Last Airbender