A guide to whitewashing in Avatar (the M Night Shyamalan film, not the James Cameron one)

[andrewducker]

From
via james_nicoll.

Comments

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

You should keep an eye on racebending! It's very educational!

[derumi.livejournal.com]

Hey, may I have your permission to post this on my Facebook wall?

[andrewducker]

Don't need my permission - I stole it.

But people, generally, seem to be spreading it as far as possible, so go for it.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

That actually sickens me and I'm usually a cynical bastard.

[andrewducker]

Yeah - I'm usually immune to changes in characters. I haven't seen Avatar, but apparently it strives to have quite different racial/cultural groups, which makes ignoring them when casting characters particularly odd.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Wow, and I thought Shyamalan couldn't get any worse

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Some random thoughts:

1. Shyamalan is himself 'dark' and undoubtedly knows the business of Hollywood filmmaking better than anyone commenting here, myself included. So he must have his reasons (equals mainstream audience, equals profit)

2. The Slumdog Millionnaire actor could refuse the role, but someone else would likely accept it. He too has his reasons.

3. Isn't there a tendency, cross-culturally, for lighter to equal good / better and darker to equal bad / worse? Maybe this is a result of western imperialism, but if so, it's still being perpetuated in post-colonial powers, often by the relative beneficiaries of colonialism (comprador elites, post-imperialist foreign educated elites etc.)

4. Why in the original weren't all the figures red, blue, green or other colours that were distanced from humanity? I saw on the link posted that there were Chinese characters in the background, which have been omitted, but did the original address Han Chinese hegemony and the position of minorities in historical-mythological China, say? Or, for that matter, the historical Chinese notion of being at the centre of the world and the further out from the Imperial court correlating with the more people were barbarians devoid of culture? Racism cuts all ways.

Did you see this BTW: http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/07/31/2350242/Games-Fail-To-Portray-Gender-and-Ethnic-Diversity

[andrewducker]

1) Doing it for the money isn't something I consider an acceptable excuse.
2) The Slumdog actor was added only after the initial outcry.
4) The original based the different cultures on mixes of different earth cultures.

And yes - didn't surprise me at all. Nor did the ridiculous commentary in the discussion.