I'm sure we all know the TV show "Avatar: The Last Airbender," aka my whole entire childhood. If you don't, let me give you a little back story. Basically, this show is about different communities of people who have capabilities like no other called "bending." Bending is a power using the elements of fire, water, Earth and air. Each element represents communities that have a long history of battles between each other. The Avatar is someone who has the capability of bending each element, and with this power, he has to face challenges to save the people he loves.
Now this show was everything to me as a kid. I remember role-playing this TV show in elementary school and pretending I was a fire-bender. Yeah, I was that weird. But for a cartoon, this show had the best plot in the entire world. To this day, I still love this show, and that's saying a lot because I'm not the biggest cartoon fan. So when I found out they were making a movie from this show, I lost it. To say I was excited was a complete understatement, as I was watching every sneak preview and every trailer possible on the Internet. I couldn't wait for this, as they were bringing the best cartoon ever, with real actors and insane graphics. So I got to the theater, completely stoked about what I was about to watch.
After it ended... I was completely and utterly disappointed. This movie sucked.
I'm not going to get into the mispronunciation of names or how the graphics were terrible because that is another article on its own. But what I wanted to critically tackle was the form of racism this movie assumes.
What? Racism? A movie based on a children's cartoon? It couldn't possibly be...
Not only did this film have terrible actors, doing terrible moves, with terrible graphics, but it was also completely and utterly white-washed with a side of stereotypes.
Let's begin with the fact that this show is an Asian show. ASIAN. A-S-I-A-N. The characters are Asian, and the cultural norms are based in Asian countries. So when I was watching this movie, I saw a whole lot of this.
Sorry, but does this look Asian to you? This is just embarrassing. They could've at least put the time and effort to make this movie reflective of the show, like adding Asian actors. But instead, I'm watching white people portraying Asian roles. What's wrong with Asian people, huh?
Another thing... since when did the Fire Nation become a Middle Eastern community. Now this boiled my blood a little... no actually, it boiled my blood a lot Again, non-Asian actors portraying Asian roles. But this... this is just sick. The Fire Nation in the show is a community that tends to be the antagonists of the show. They want to keep their culture in power and are usually the ones to inflict terror among the other nations. To make it simple, they are deemed "the bad guys" in this show, as they kill innocent people and start destructive wars. Now... can someone please begin to explain to me why this group is portrayed as an Arab-looking community in the movie?
Who even thought this would be a good idea? Not only was it ignorant and inappropriate to portray this group as a race that is stigmatized every single day for being terrorists, but was it really a "mistake?" Was it the movie producers trying to advance the stereotypes in reality, or do the producers think this was an accurate portrayal of the terrorist group? Did they think this group was in fact of Middle Eastern descent, and that is why they were cast as fire benders because it fits their role? They were very much wrong.
I've never been so disappointed with a film, as it was based off of my favorite show of all time. I do not recommend.
