1

M. Night Defends The Last Airbender Against Racism Allegations

Date: Jun 27, 2010 | Author: Josh Tyler | Category: Sci-Fi

The movie hasn’t even been seen yet and already the media’s controversy-hungry talking heads and the internet’s more volatile fanboys have started whispering the word “racism” in The Last Airbender’s direction. At issue are director M. Night Shyamalan’s casting decisions. In the original animated series on which the movie’s based, all of the characters are Asian. In his movie, they’re not.

Does that make his movie racist? M. Night thinks it’s anything but and in an interview with Indie Movies Online he defending his film against what he feels are ridiculous accusations. After reading what he had to say, I’m inclined to agree.

Says M. Night, “Here’s the irony of the conversation: The Last Airbender is the most culturally diverse movie series of all time. I’m not talking about maybe one Jedi, maybe one person of a different color – no one’s even close. That’s a great pride to me. The irony of this statement enrages me to the point of … not even the accusation, but the misplacement of it. You’re coming at me, the one Asian filmmaker who has the right to cast anybody I want, and I’m casting this entire movie in this color blind way where everyone is represented. I even had one section of the Earth kingdom as African American, which obviously isn’t in the show, but I wanted to represent them, too!”

He has a point. The thing is, the story is set in a fantasy world. The characters in it can be of any race or nationality. The cartoon depicts only one ethnicity. For the movie, Night has gone out of his way to depict a world containing a wide variety of skin colors and ethnicities. In a sense it’s the source material that had the problem, limiting itself to only one group of color. It sounds like Night has tried to broaden The Last Airbender’s world view, not narrow it.

Related Articles

Comments

  • http://myconnected.webs.com Guanxi

    M.Night Uses Reverse PsychologyThe actual genders and races of what the elements represent are in Rodney St.Michael’s book, Sync My World: Thief’s Honor GA SK. (myconnected.webs.com)Air = Yellow “race” = Males = Scholars. Water = Small Browns = Females = Shamans. Earth = Blacks = Lesbian = Social Ubuntu Business Class. Fire = Whites = Gays = Military, Militant Business Class. Ether or Metal = Big Browns = Bisexuals = Working Class, Bi-military(females & bis go together like Katara & Sokka or brown females and males). Therefore Aang should be Chinese.Katara should be a Malay like a Filipina.The Earth Kingdom should be African.Zuko should be White like Hitler, Alexander the Gay or Gen. Arthur McArthur.The Fire Nation’s army should be like the fiery Sacred Band of Thebes (an ancient elite gay army that Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell troops would be envious of) or the Sturmabteilung, the much-feared homosexual stormtroopers of Hitler.And the Slumdog Millionaire (casted as Zuko) should be Sokka.This film is just as messed up as the movie Angels and Demons. The branding of the priests were incorrect.But anyway, from the guy who gave you the Sixth Sense, which did not portray childhood schizophrenia accurately or anywhere near the real world, what do you expect?Bisexuals love horror and terror. They also scam people, just like the Wizard of Oz. The old Oz film which is also about the Elements is understandably all-white because they were ignorant back then. People have higher standards now, and realism is a must.But M.Night, the Wizard of South Asia also has lessons for everyone after conning them:1) Clearly, when people don’t play roles that fit them, everything is messed up. (e.g. “male” clergy in what should be a female realm, forbidding gays in the military which is their territory)2) Whites are not fit to play the leading roles of Air and Water in the world scene. Leave that to the ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, Korea and South East Asia).3) Arabs are not necessarily the greatest evil in the world. Occasionally, they float like Ether to the ranks of Water. It is fiery whites that fit the role of Lucifer or Satan.4) By acquiring objective reviews from leading critics, they have agreed themselves that these are all factual objective realities.Thus, the Wizard, even if he is a con man, is also an accidental pseudo teacher. Partly, it’s called sunyata or “emptiness.”