ooookaaaay....

[Bob Schroeck]

For that matter blacks can be heavily prejudiced against other blacks

For instance, the old "brown paper bag" test that used to be common in some circles.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Epsilon]

So, just curious...

But this is Aang's voice actor.

He looks... surprisingly not Asian.

So... is the television series racist?

---------------

Epsilon

[Morganite]

You know, I think this is the only place I've seen any serious disagreement on this issue.

Everywhere else, across a pretty wide political spectrum, it's gone about like this.

-Certain main characters in the tv series are obviously non-white. Exact ethnic types are hard to pin down in animation (especially animation not necessarily
intended to depict this world), but "non-white" is obvious enough.

-There's also a rather white-looking character who, for this part of the story, would be considered the villain.

-In the movie casting, the above-mentioned main characters have been given obviously white actors.

-The above-mentioned sort-of-villain has been given an obviously non-white actor.

-That's pretty damn suspicious, isn't it?

I'm not sure why people seem to have an issue with the director being Shyamalan in particular. But then I do judge him entirely on the basis of
Unbreakable, which may not be representative. But it should be.

Of course, he might not be the only person who has a say in the casting? Well, maybe he is, I don't know. `.`

-Morgan.

[Bluemage]

It's also possible that the casting crew didn't find any actors of the appropriate ethnicities that were interested in being in (this particular
director's) live-action adaptation of a (mostly) kids' animation series.

There may have been actors that looked right, ethnically and all, but couldn't act, or sounded totally wrong for the characters they acted like. The
reverse is probably literally true; they found actors that may not have been the right ethnicity for the roles they were playing, but could act, and possibly
sound, the part. Combined with a liberal helping of They Just Didn't Care, that'd pretty much explain it.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Wiregeek]

Morganni, Bluemage, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the forum. Refusing to jump to an extreme conclusion and start screaming about racism is
unacceptable behavior here. You two are behaving far too rationally, you're gonna need to go.

(tounge firmly in cheek, FYI)
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[ECSNorway]

The real issue, of course, is that there are far too many people in the world who are so obsessed with rooting out racism that they see it everywhere. That
they go into every situation asking themselves "alright, how can I prove that this guy is a racist?".

People have become oversenstized to the issue.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Morganite]

I'm not sure how to take that, since I'm one of the people who thinks it looks kind of racist, and I'm not that obsessed.

Mind you, I'm not rejecting alternate explanations, and I don't have enough information to lay it all at Shyamalan's door, but still. At the very
least, I'd say someone really did not think it all the way through. Lack of racial motivation won't stop people from being suspicious and telling all
their friends to not see the movie and such.

-Morgan, wasn't planning on seeing the movie anyway. '.'

[ECSNorway]

Not saying there's a 1:1 correllation, Morg. Just that there are a lot of people, especially in the American Left, who -are- obsessive about searching for
anything that even hints at the possibility of someone's older brother's cousin's sister's ex-fiancee's former roommate's racism.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Bluemage]

While some amount of political correctness is necessary (I am not arguing for ethnic slurs or anything), some of those people on the Left take it way too far.

The teacher of a philosophy class I took in college categorized everybody who didn't actively take up the cause of campaigning for greater
acceptance/rights/acknowledgment of nonwhites, women, and GLBT as racist, sexist, and homophobic. The reasoning was that 'the system' is biased
against these groups, and by not crusading, regardless of whether or not one holds a personal bias against any group,
one is not acting against that systemic bias, and is therefore supporting all of those -isms. She taught this as established fact- the idea that anybody that
doesn't champion certain causes (many of which, in America, have already achieved full legal equality, and are still pushing for more) is essentially the
enemy- and half the class immediately lapped it up. I was the only one who challenged this idea.

I am not racist, sexist, or homophobic- I dislike everybody equally, until individuals prove thmselves worth liking. I see the role of the government is to
ensure that everybody has the same rights under the law, and that any attempt to give extra rights to one side, or deprive one side of rights, should be
rectified, and the perpetrators punished. I wish that everybody in society was as tolerant of others as I am (the original meaning of 'tolerate'- put
up with, regardless of dislike). If they were, they might eventually stop disliking people who are different than themselves, and realize that people are
people, regardless of what the look like, which plumbing they have, or who they like to bugger.

And yes, I realize that my position can be interpreted as 'against' both sides of the traditional debate. That's kind of the point.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[SkyeFire]

So, is "casting racism" a one-way street? Because if we're going to claim that casting an actor whose ethnicity differs from that of the
original character, there's at least two classical dramas that are in trouble. Years ago (early to mid-90s, IIRC), the African-American actor who used to
be the lead on the sitcom "Benson" was cast as the lead in the Broadway production of "Phantom of the Opera," and no one batted an eyelash.
Well, not that I heard of -- I doubt the KKK's national newsletter has a theater critic. Got good reviews, too, IIRC.

And the Branagh production of "Much Ado About Nothing" cast Denzel Washington as an Italian prince, with Keanu Reaves as his brother(!), no lie. And
no one so much as blinked. And DW carried off the role with style and aplomb.

So is there, to steal a term from SCOTUS, a "bright line" where casting off-ethnicity actors is okay, and when it isn't? Is it fine to cast
Laurence Fishburn as King Arthur (hey, *I* think he could carry it off), but wrong to cast John Wayne as Temujin (okay, that *was* wrong, but not for reasons
of ethnicity)? If the Jewish Holocaust victims in "Schindler's List" weren't all Jewish, was that a racist act by Spielberg, or simply
choosing the actors that could best carry the roles? Or, heck, were the producers of "Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon" being "racist" when the
*didn't* cast Usagi and Minkao as blue-eyed blondes? From where I'm sitting, the mere act of casting "white" actors in non-white roles fails
to pass the bar for an accusation of racism.

There's a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered, IMO, before anyone can justifiablty accuse Shyamalan of racism in this matter. First,
there's the big and murky question of whether he actually *had* any obligation to cast "ethnically correct" actors in these roles. Second, did
he turn down equally- or better-qualified "ethnically correct" actors for these roles in favor of "white" actors? Third, assuming the
answer to the previous question is "no," was he obligated to *pursue* more "ethnically correct" actors for the roles, at the possible risk
of damaging the quality of the final production? Fourth, just how much, if any, should "ethnic match" between an actor and a role matter in casting
-- if the choice is (for example) between an "adequate" "ethnically correct" actor for Aang and a "perfect match" for Aang who
just happens to be "white" (or black, or hispanic, or whatever), just how big does the personality-match gap have to be before people stop yelling
"racism!"?

Now, since it's already been mentioned upthread that the "heroes" have been cast "white," but the "villain" has been cast
"non-white," okay, that's an indicator that Shyamalan's casting might bear further scrutiny in this case. And it might bear examining his
past record to see if there's an identifiable pattern of *unnecessary* "ethnically incorrect" casting. Still, I don't see any smoking guns
here yet -- Correlation does not prove causation.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go dig out my "Much Ado About Nothing" DVD again, and watch Denzel play an Italian prince with an American accent, with a
"white" brother played by a guy who's actually Hawaiian, surrounded by a bunch of Brits *also* pretending to be early-modern-era Italian nobles
(without bothering to disguise their British accents), and a 'cop' played by Michael Keaton, whose ethnicity issues are completely buried by the sheer
Odball Factor of his character.....