White Washing
M. Night Shyamalan’s new film casts white actors in what are clearly meant to be Asian roles.By Julianne Henry
May 11, 2009
Avatar: The Last Airbender, the animated series from Nickelodeon (allmoviephoto.com)Blackface, a theater tradition in which white actors would present themselves as African American characters using stage paint, has long been taboo. But M. Night Shyamalan plans to replicate such offensive casting with Asian characters in his forthcoming film, The Last Airbender. The live action film, based on the Nickelodeon TV animated series called Avatar, tells the story of a young monk in an Asian-inspired world who must reach enlightenment to bring down an evil regime. Dee Dee Ricketts and Frank Marshall, the film’s casting director and producer respectively, decided that three white actors should play the Tibetan and Inuit main characters in the film: Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone has been cast in the role of Sokka, a young warrior from a fictional tribe based on the Inuit peoples. Nicola Peltz plays Katara, Sokka’s younger sister, and Noah Ringer plays Aang, the monk who ends up the titular last surviving practioner of the Airbending discipline.
Rathbone, who last played a pale vampire, perhaps figured he could sidestep the issue of playing an Inuit character by getting a tan. (Photos of him at a concert after the start of filming show that his tan turned into more of a burn.) It seems Ricketts and Marshall think make-up and computer graphics will be enough to transform Rathbone and his co-stars into convincing Inuit and Asian characters, but they’re missing the point. There are thousands of real Inuit and other Asian actors available to play these roles without the aid of make-up and computer effects.
The general insensitivity and questionable casting of The Last Airbender has many fans of the original cartoon series up in arms. This is no mere gathering of angry fans hunched over their computer keyboards, flaming on Internet forums. Fans have been meeting up in person, protesting casting calls and making videos on YouTube. And it’s not just fans of the series: the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) has gotten involved, demanding an answer from Paramount Pictures on its casting practices. The East West Players, an Asian-American theater group that describes itself as "a home dedicated to promoting Asian Pacific American work and talent not available under Hollywood’s limited opportunities for Asian Americans," also contacted Paramount and received a form letter in response.
Marshall informed angry Avatar fans on his Twitter account that "the casting is complete and we [Paramount Entertainment] did not discriminate against anyone." Marshall then stated he was "...done talking about it." He also said that "the movie is actually more diverse than the TV show." Apparently adding white people to a story that wouldn’t otherwise include them does introduce diversity, if you want to get technical about it, but the Avatar TV show was already plenty diverse, depicting a pan-Asian world and characters to match.
Tibetan and Inuit actors who are in the film were, according to Ricketts, background extras dressed up like Ukrainian villagers. At a casting call for extras in Philadelphia in January, she said, "If you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you’ll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever." Whatever, indeed. She also advised those who hoped to be in the film to "dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire. ... If you’re Korean, wear a kimono. If you’re from Belgium, wear lederhosen."
So far, Paramount says that "the producers and the director have envisioned embodying the Airbender universe with a large and ethnically diverse cast that represents many different heritages and cultures from all corners of the globe." With the main characters made up of mostly white actors, it seems that the producers and the director need to re-examine their definition of diversity.
Of course, the actors aren’t all white. Dev Patel, of Indian descent, is set to play Prince Zuko, the villain of The Last Airbender. Now we have three white good guys against a dark-skinned bad guy. No racism here! It should also be noted that Prince Zuko is from the Fire Nation, a fictional country that is based mainly on the cultures of China and Japan. It would be a stretch to say that Patel could pass for either ethnicity.
But Hollywood isn’t getting it all wrong these days. Chris Weitz, the director for New Moon, which continues the Twilight saga, insisted that the Native American werewolves had to be played by Native American actors. Weitz spent months auditioning thousands of Native Americans, all of whom had to have papers proving their heritage to even be considered for the role. Weitz, who replaced Catherine Hardwicke as director in the Twilight film series, has shown that it is possible for a big-budget fantasy film to cast actors whose race matches those of the characters without the world coming to an end. The Last Airbender could learn something from his example.
Still, Airbender’s problem goes beyond angry fans and actors. Some have argued in comments on articles about the controversy that the casting of The Last Airbender movie doesn’t matter because children "don’t see race." But recent studies show that mental health problems are more common in children who experience racial discrimination. In fact, a new study conducted by UCLA found that “perceived racial or ethnic discrimination is not an uncommon experience among fifth-grade students and that it may have a negative effect on their mental health." The study went on to say that "children … who reported perceived discrimination were more likely to have symptoms of depression… oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder."
Asians shouldn’t always be shoehorned into only playing the “Asian” characters, but the source material for The Last Airbender clearly calls for Asian actors and actresses. Casting mostly Caucasian actors in a movie about Asian cultures for the sake of "diversity" is reverse affirmative action and claiming that white actors are underrepresented in movies is laughable and amounts to yellowface.
Encouraging colorblindness doesn’t solve racial problems. Children do, in fact, notice racial differences between themselves, their playmates, and their role models. The Last Airbender depicts Asian and Inuit characters played by white actors. In New Moon, Native Americans were played by Native Americans. The New Moon film has received little racial backlash, while The Last Airbender is inspiring more outrage from fans and non-fans every day. It may be too much to expect Hollywood to learn from this experience, but we can hope that they will decide that whitewashing is out.
Julianne Henry is an illustration major and will be a junior at UMass Dartmouth this fall.
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Comments
Well spoken. This does go beyond an upset fan base. This is something that effects kids at a base level and has hidden damaging consequences. I have an adopted cousin who’s ethnically Korean and it always felt wrong when we were both growing up that in a sea of white actors/cartoon/comic heroes, there were hardly any Asian American characters he could look to.
— Erikonil - May 11, 09:02 PM - #While I generally agree with you on the absurd casting of the movie. It is also pretty obvious that you didn’t actually watch the show. Describing Zuko as “the bad guy” is way too simplistic. Despite it being based on animation, it isn’t as simple minded as most cartoons and Zuko is much more than just “the bad guy”.
That being said, I have had my doubts about the viability of this project ever since it was announced that Shyamalan was doing it. It is really too bad, since the original was a great piece of art, despite being animation and aimed at kids.
— Mike - May 13, 09:01 AM - #@Mike: I do agree with your point about calling Zuko the “bad guy.” Still, for all intents and purposes, it is safe to say that if the first movie follows the plot of the first season, Zuko will basically be presented as the antagonist, leaving most people to trivialize that to “bad guy.” So really, for the sake of the arguement I think that opinion holds, although Zuko’s character is much more than that.
That being said, wonderful article! It’s a shame that this beautiful, unique, innovative show is being butchered like this.
— Jhenne Tyler - May 13, 01:45 PM - #@Mike: Zuko is presented as the villain in all of the promotional material for the cartoon, and it’s safe to say that he is the primary antagonist for the entire first season. Also, because Dev Patel is cast as Zuko, the rest of the Fire Nation will be played by actors of Indian descent, which means the evil nation will be played by brown people, a pattern all too common in Hollywood.
— Kenneth - May 13, 03:49 PM - #It is indeed a shame that Asians treat other Asians this poorly. Shyamlan is of Indian origin but retains some of the biases of the ancestors. In India white women have been used to model ethnic dresses. I guess something dont change!
— George - May 13, 10:00 PM - #Strange that the Dragonball movie didn’t receive the same treatment; it had an Asian director (James Wong) and the main character was an action-hero-built white guy. Perhaps this is less simple than Ms. Henry thinks- Given that Asian directors (either Shyamlan or Wong) cast caucasian leads, love interests, etc, maybe its not racism. There is the comic-book effect, where in the source material for these movies (anime), all of the characters are depicted as caucasians.
In short, this analysis seems simplistic; racism of casting probably isn’t the biggest hurdle for Asian actors in Hollywood. Maybe, if Asians compose 5% of the US population, they could be represented proportionally, but be a small proportion. That doesn’t clear the director for the silly casting call of having all-white natives, but really, Shyamlan isn’t know for his great casting (did you WATCH the happening?).
— Anonymous Rex - May 15, 12:58 PM - #@Anonymous Rex— OK, let’s take your 5% statistic and think about what that actuallly looks like. That means 1 in 20. Are 1 in 20 movie characters Asian? No. Or we could say, one in 20 movies should have all Asian-American casts. Do you know how many American movies there are with all Asian casts? Out of the hundreds and thousands of predominantly white casts out there, there is ONE, ONE, ONE movie with an all Asian cast— Better Luck Tomorrow. Your own argument defeats itself.
— Pheagan - May 16, 02:24 AM - #I dont know where to start… I’m a 31 old white male and I’m so frustrated, angry, saddened about the casting of this film. I am a huge fan of the animated show and was so excited to hear about the film. I was the first of my friends/family to find the show and by the end of the 3rd season, my friends/family were all in love with the show and excited there was a film being made. However after reading about the blatent disregard for the source material as far as casting, none of us are going to see this movie that we looked so forward in seeing. Its a damn shame, Avatar is one of the best written, smartest shows animated or not. I don’t understand how they can say that 4 white kids were the only ones they could find to play these roles. I utterly refuse to believe that. I really wish Shayamalan and his casting director’s would have taken a que from Chris Weitz, the director for the second Twilight movie. He insisted that the Native American werewolves had to be played by Native American actors. He spent months auditioning thousands of Native Americans, all of whom had to have papers proving their heritage to even be considered for the role. I have nothing against the actors they cast to play Katara, Sokka, Aang or Zuko, hell I dont even know who half of them are, I’m just saying that i refuse to believe they were the only actors they could get to play these roles and it saddens and angers me that this wonderful work of art is being ruined by some of the most blatent racial bias we’ve seen.
— Jay - May 18, 11:17 PM - #i think we should really give it a chance. this is not the first movie to ever done that. what’s the whole point anyways, racism. common we’re over reacting. avatar the last airbender is an americanize cartoon sure its influenced by asian animation. my whole point is that you got to stop over reacting and just wait to see how it all comes together or not
— david - May 22, 01:21 PM - #The thing is, major well known white heroes are never cast by anything other than white actors.
Superman has always been played by a white man.
Batman has always been played by a white man.
It seems that Hollywood only seems to care for racial diversity when its not a main character, or when the hero is not white.
For example, in Daredevil, they cast Kingpin ( a white crimelord ) with a black actor.
All well and good.
However, by the same stretch I expect them to Cast Sokka and Katara with dark skinned actors, and Aang by an asian kid.
Children are not dumb, and when black and asian kids go to the cinema and see their favourite characters cast by white folk, they will be upset.
— Vincymon - Jul 13, 08:36 PM - #@David. Go suck a dick
— ace - Aug 30, 09:00 AM - #@Vincymon: Well said was your description of that double standard.
However, I think children will have a less overt reaction. That’s what’s troubling…the simultaneous lack of respect for our youth and their development. Many young people don’t learn how to vocalize or express what they feel about what seems wrong, and with examples like this, we are filling their heads with a warped idea of what is acceptable. Many won’t react until they grow up with ambitions of their own and feel stifled in a world that has misrepresented them, or else failed to represent them at all.
— Aaron - Nov 15, 01:14 AM - #