An infectious sense of hope accompanied the inauguration of President Barack Obama, surpassing even the optimism achieved upon his election. Across the nation his supporters utter the word “change” like a quiet devotion to the gods of Diversity and Equality. In many ways it seems logical that we would congratulate ourselves on at last overcoming long-standing and inexcusable hostilities, to elect not only a competent man, but an African American man. The election of our first black president has inherently changed our nation, but is this triumph everything we believe it to be?

The day after Obama was elected, one of my professors warned that despite the triumph of the day, we must be careful not to forget that racism wasn’t dead, that minorities still faced many problems including the stereotypes used to depict them in our media. Despite their comments, I was not about to diminish my optimism for the diverse storytelling I perceived to have opened up in television and movies. Now that the people of the United States had so decisively elected an African American to the office of president, wouldn’t they also be ready to embrace a broader range of characters in their entertainment? On December 9^th, upon reading a short article in Entertainment Weekly, I realized my optimism had been naïveté.

“I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan,” said Jackson Rathbone.

According to the article, famous director M. Night Shyamalan had begun casting his live-action adaptation of the highly acclaimed and widely viewed Nickelodeon animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. First, anyone unfamiliar with the show needs to understand what made it so amazing during its three-season run. Unlike other Nickelodeon staples like Spongebob Squarepants, Avatar is more than a cartoon. Using Asian mythologies, traditions, architecture, martial arts practices and philosophies, the creators of Avatar, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, developed a rich, diverse world filled with well-rounded characters and all the gray area between good and evil we find so compelling in our own world.

Essential to the story is how this world is divided between the four nations (the Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes and Air Nomads) and balanced by the one person who can master the bending arts associated with each of these peoples, the Avatar. The series thus follows twelve-year-old Aang, the last remaining Airbender and long-thought-vanished Avatar, who must learn all four bending arts and put an end to the one hundred year war waged against the other societies by the Fire Nation. Helping him along his journey is the Waterbender Katara and her warrior brother Sokka, as well as blind Earthbender Toph Bei Fong. Throughout much of the series Aang is hunted by the banished and scarred Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, who must capture the Avatar to redeem his honor. Over the course of the three seasons Aang masters the elements, Katara overcomes cultural sexism, and Zuko transforms from angst-ridden anger glutton to the understanding and wise new ruler of the Fire Nation.

With all this great material at the ready, what could be so devastating about the EW article on Shyamalan’s film adaptation? Despite clear cultural markers including skin color (Katara and Sokka are dark-skinned and therefore long presumed by fans to be Inuit), dress (if the Kyoshi Warriors of the Earth Kingdom don’t look like female Samurai with Geisha make-up, I’ll eat my hat) and other signifiers (such as the in-world use of classical Chinese calligraphy), Shyamalan cast all of his main characters with Caucasian actors.

Upon the printing of the news of this decision, the Internet was aflame with fan responses. What happened to the diversity of the series, the beauty of a non-western mythology, the careful attention given to respectfully incorporating elements of cultures far different then those dominating ours in the U.S.? The fans demanded an answer. Instantly a letter-writing campaign protesting the cast was started, message boards were assaulted and blogs (often emotional tirades, sometimes forceful, analytical rebukes) flooded the web. By January, Entertainment Weekly ran a second short article on the casting, noting the extreme and almost entirely disapproving response of fans. According to the EW article, “Paramount declined comment, other than to say that casting isn’t complete.”

However, as of late January, pop star Jesse McCartney, cast to play Prince Zuko, was gushing to radio hosts about his killer Kung Fu workouts for the film. Also according to him the show was originally an explosive hit in Asia before coming to the United States (point in fact: The series is based on Asian culture but was conceived, written, often storyboarded and originally aired in the United States before gaining international attention).

This casting decision goes beyond just the destruction of a beloved franchise however, and that is why it is worth fighting. Hollywood, so often accused of being liberal in its tastes but in truth highly conservative in less noticeable more profit guaranteeing ways, has a long history of problems in its depictions of minorities. Not only has the problem been a tendency to characterize non-white characters as either violent outsiders or unintelligent loafers, but a habit of replacing dominant and positively portrayed minority characters with white ones. This is nothing new to either the African American or the Asian communities. For years insult has been added to injury when minority characters were not simply adapted for white performers, but instead white performers portrayed these characters in blackface or yellowface.

Over time, blackface has fortunately become highly taboo to the point that its practice and those performing it have been sharply rebuked by films like Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and more recently Tropic Thunder. While the discontinuation of the absurd practice of blackface has been a great step forward, this of course does not solve the problem. Even after blackface fell into disfavor, yellowface continued to be used. Over the years many of our most favored celebrities have taped their eyelids, worn false teeth and yellowed their skin to play “Asian” characters, including: Boris Karloff, Katherine Hepburn, Agnes Moorehead, Fred Astaire, John Wayne, Yul Bryner, Marlon Brando, Mickey Rooney, Shirley MacLaine, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Jerry Lewis, and Linda Hunt. More recent actors have participated in this distasteful practice, although done with the claim it serves as a critique, or as part of a much different joke.

Unfortunately as the current casting stands, we have the potential to have not only a situation where non-white characters are replaced with white actors, but use of make-up and costuming easily defined as brownface and yellowface has already been openly discussed. In an interview with MTV.com Jackson Rathbone, best known for playing Jasper in the film Twilight and currently signed on to play Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe, was quoted as having this response to the controversy, “I think it’s one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan.” Clearly Rathbone has missed the point. I find this to be another moment to bring up Tropic Thunder, as it is this kind of thoughtless, role/money-grubbing behavior that the film so successfully satirizes. Apparently the execs at Paramount and the casting director didn’t bother seeing it.

In the past few years several other films have been guilty of the same whitewashed casting as The Last Airbender, films such as Speedracer, Forbidden Kingdom, Eathsea, and Dragonball Evolution (and I would like to point out that all three that have been released so far have failed terribly). Eathsea in particular received a great deal of criticism, as the successful book series it was based on featured a dark-skinned hero but the film cast yet another blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretty boy (i.e. Shawn Ashmore of X-Men fame) to play its protagonist. The difference here is that while Earthsea had devoted fans, Avatar has more and better informed/prepared fans. That is why protesting the disrespectful casting of The Last Airbender serves a purpose greater than releasing frustrations about the destruction of a great franchise: Because if we can force Paramount to recast this film, or cause the film to fail at the box office if it is not recast, it would send the message to Hollywood that we the fans and filmgoers are not only ready for, but are demanding entertainment populated by characters as diverse as we are.

We have already proven our point in politics, that we want the people who are most qualified and who represent us as a society, a society made up of all kinds of colors, religions, backgrounds and values. Now it is time Hollywood heard us as well.

If you would like more information about how you can fight the all-white casting of The Last Airbender as well as links to other great articles and blogs on this subject, visit: www.aang-aint-white.livejournal.com