oh, for simpler times

[jaina]

I just need to put this out there, guys: No, I haven't seen The Last Airbender trailer. No, I'm not going to. No, I will not be seeing the movie. At all.

For me, it boils down to this: the filmmakers deliberately set out to whitewash the main cast. After the resulting outcry, they backed down a little-- just enough to recast the villains as people of color. And I'm not interested in supporting that. At all.

I don't particularly want to debate this, and if you're excited about the movie, I'm certainly not out to ruin your fun. I just wanted to explain why, while I love the show, I'm not interested in talking about the movie in any form.

Comments

[evilbearhunter.livejournal.com]

I am right with you, although I only watched the first season.

[lita64.livejournal.com]

Wow, after reading that article I am absolutely disgusted with the way that was handled. :/

[laughingmagpie.livejournal.com]

*high five*

I totally agree with you!

[tirianmal.livejournal.com]

It's fairly blatant, sure.

But there's other reasons not to watch this film, too.

M. Night Scriptsuckalot

The original trailer for the movie ... with special effects that look like they were done in 1999. And a young man who I'm sure does lots of martial arts ... but can't seem to convince anyone of it onscreen.

M. Night Scriptsuckalot.

[raykel.livejournal.com]

I think it would bother me for a tale about the real world and real cultures, but for a fictional world, it doesn't. ::shrug::

[peddler-creates.livejournal.com]

That is outrageous and disgusting. I'm not familiar with the show, and only vaguely heard about the movie, but WTF'ing F. It reminds me of how in the decades past, they'd get white guys to darken up their faces a bit to play Arabs. As a woman of mixed Arab and German descent, I find this whole thing really offensive.

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

*links arms with you*

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It was very, very not good. :(

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

*high five back*

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

See I was worried about *that* from the beginning. (About Shamalama.) Then the whole casting shit happened and I thought well, at least I don't need to care whether the script sucks anymore.

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's really blatant and really disgusting. And really, really sad. You'd think, in this day and age, that we'd be past this shit, but no.

[anirt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. The thing is, that
(1) saying oops, we'll put in one POC, the villain, is IMO making it worse
(2) the whole principle of inclusion and
(3) I have a friend who is an Asian actress who has not gotten many roles so far, and they're mostly background roles. I don't know how many she goes out for, but there's a pretty clear sense that there just aren't that many roles for Asians (and other POC) out there. So to me, that makes it a bit personal, even if she herself wouldn't have been in the movie for other reasons, the whole work availability scheme.

(Teresa is also an MIT grad, which means that when I was on FB initially, I'd get all these recommendations for people somewhere in her network who were also somewhere in your network, although the two of you weren't connected.)

On a related note, HIMYM was very cringe-inducing this week.

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Basically, every new piece of info that came out about this movie, and every new decision the filmmakers made, seemed to make things worse instead of better.

And yes, exactly, about Asian actors. It would have been such a wonderful statement and opportunity to cast a bunch of young Asian actors in a big fantasy film like this. It just enrages me that they didn't. They didn't even *try,* or even ask for "all ethnicities" in the casting notices. There's a song on the commentary track for Dr. Horrible, called Nobody's Asian in the Movies (http://drhorrible.com/commentary.html#nobody), and it's funny, but it's really sad.

Teresa Huang (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1446971/), right? I know some MIT people who knew her from doing theater there. (And she played the nurse in my most-watched episode of Studio 60!) Have we had this conversation before?

Let's not talk about this week's HIMYM. Embarrassing for all concerned. Yuck.

[anirt.livejournal.com]

Teresa Huang, right? ... Have we had this conversation before?

Yes! And it's not only possible we had this conversation before, but it might be possible you've met her. I'm pretty sure (although fuzzy) that she came to LuvFest 99 at the Arlington Tower where LF99 crossed over with WantonCon I, and I know you were briefly there for WC I.