Shweta Ganesh Kumar shared with me this TED Talk from novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about how "a single story" about another person or country can cause critical misunderstanding, and I felt that the talk really reflected why I started this blog. Please watch it below, if you haven't already: I sometimes teach creative writing to children and teens and have been very shocked to see that the first impulse of my students - all Filipinos or Chinese Filipinos ages 11-15 - is to write stories featuring characters with blond hair and blue eyes. It seems that, like the seven-year-old Adichie, my students have "a single story" about what literature is and do not think that people like them can exist in literature. (Needless to say, I am now trying to expose my students to more Filipino literature and literature from other Asian countries.) I blog because our students, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, and godchildren NEED AND DESERVE more than "a ...
Yes it is. And I won't be viewing this very wrong movie.
ReplyDeleteThis sucks and there was no call for it. Kids love this show as is. I see the enemy is still dark.
ReplyDeleteI feel very sad about this. I just watched the entire cartoon series and I loved it. A movie adaptation would have been really cool - if it had been done right.
ReplyDeleteIs it not obvious that Aang is Asian? He wears Tibetan pants and looks like a Shaolin monk. He's obviously Buddhist too. There are Chinese characters in the show's logo, and all the writing on the show is in Chinese.
* screams *
Kind of just sticks out like a sore thumb - the darkest skinned person playing the villian. The rest of the cast looks kind of generically caucasion, very generic looking.
ReplyDeleteBut you know what else bugs me? maybe it's a cartoon style (at least in this panel you show), but why does the Asian guy have extremely round eyes? In the cartoon version, I'm seeing that everyone has rounded eyes, except the villain, (who actually looks more handsome to me). Or are they all just very surprised.
Good point, Mardel. The show is heavily influenced by Japanese anime, hence the big eyes. But then why does the villain have very small eyes? The Japanese anime influence doesn't reach the art for the villain?
ReplyDeleteOriginally Caucasian singer and actor Jesse McCartney was cast as the villain. Then protests mounted against the whitewashing in the movie and Indian actor Dev Patel replaced Jesse McCartney. Coincidence? I think not. This is tokenism.