I'm a woman of Mexican ancestry with dark hair, dark skin and dark eyes. I got two little neices that are half black/half mexican and one neice and nephew that are half filipino/half mexican. They're beautiful and intelligent children. One neice even got to appear in a commercial.

And I know there are thousands upon thousands of minority children in this country. I'm going to guess...there are oh..HUNDREDS of those children aspiring to be actors and actresses. But only a dozen of them will actually make it. And they'll probably only do less than a handful of roles in their lifetime.

Why? Well...turn on your television and YOU tell me why. What are the most popular shows on TV? What proportion of those actors are actually minorities (and ya know...look like minorities?)?

Also...check out what's in theaters. How many minority children do you see there? How many were in Harry Potter?

Whatever the case is...there aren't many opportunities for minorities in Hollywood. So there are not many famous minority actors or actresses. Not much for minority kids either.

Let's not factor talent in here cuz lord knows there are plenty of white actors who dont' have talent themselves but still get work.

No wait, let's go ahead and factor it.

There are talented minority actors/ess.

How can they not be? Please try to tell me that out of the HUNDREDS OF HUNDREDS of aspiring minority actors/ress, there aren't a handful with actual talent. Please. Just try and tell me that.

Talent has nothing to do with ethnicity or race. Those talented minority children are out there, they just don't have a lot of opportunities. Either because they come from a low income household or because...there isn't much demand in Hollywood for them.

But they are out there.

And M. Night Shyamalan...COULDN'T FUCKING FIND A SINGLE MINORITY CHILD TO PLAY A ROLE IN THE LAST AIRBENDER MOVIE HE'S MAKING?!?

(I discovered the news via here...Avatar the Last Airbender...casting. in case you're wondering. Free Avatar comic scan there btw.)


Words cannot express my utter rage right now, nor my disappointment.

I was really looking forward to this movie. My concerns had nothing to do with casting because I figured a director like M Night Syamalan, an Indian-American himself, would've casted ya know...minorities for the role since all the Airbender characters actually look like minorities. (they look multicultural actually, but still NOT WHITE). I mean, the director got into Avatar through his little daughter who wanted to dress up like Katara for Halloween.

...did it ever occur to him WHY his daughter wanted to dress up like Katara? I don't know what his daughter looks like, but if she looks anything like her daddy...I'm going to guess...it's probably cuz Katara looks like her. Ya know...INDIAN.

*facepalm*

There is no excuse. So now aside from special effects, digital animation concerns with a movie of this style, I gotta put up with EPIC FAIL casting? Really?

Yeah. Fuck Hollywood.

All I want is there to be more variety in Hollywood, see more minority children on tv for my little neices and nephews to enjoy. Possibly introduce Avatar to my multicultural neices and nephew. This movie would've been just the movie to do that.

60 years ago, they gave roles of minorities to white actors because to hire an actual minority in a major roll would've been offensive to the white audiences.

It's 2009 and Asian-influenced and Asian-LOOKING characters are being casted for white actors. *facepalm*

Fail. EPIC FAIL. I am so disppointed in you M. Night Shyamalan. I expected better of you. I hope your daughter can still identify with a white girl.

Cuz lord knows I struggled to do that when I was a kid.

(and that's another reason why young JB attached herself to Sailor Mars and Batgirl Cass Cain, yay).

EDIT:

To be honest, I was expecting young martial artists not Disney actors!! I kept thinking...man, it's going to be tough to find a good martial artist that looks like Katara. Young, dark skinned with blue eyes? and a martial artist? Yup, that's going to be interesting. I figured well, maybe they can forego the blue eyes and just pick a dark skinned minority martial artist. There's gotta be plenty of them.

My brother did jujitsu and judo and his teachers were black or Cuban. XD And his classmates were a variety of minority kids. Asian, black, hispanic and mixed.

So I didn't think it would be tough to find a number of good young minority martial artists.

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY THINK TO START AT A MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT!

Heck, go to LA county. There's gotta be a hundred martial arts school with a lot of minorities who are probably dreaming of being the next Jackie Chan or Jet Li! Hollywood is there! You're going to tell me NONE of those martial artist kids want to be famous actors?

No, they go to Texas. *facepalm* (hey, who knows maybe Aang's actor is part Mexican...)


Don't get me wrong, I figured Aang would be a white kid and maybe Azula, Ty Lee, Suki and various others because they could pass for white. But Katara and Sokka?? really?? And Zuko's gonna be done by a blond pop singer? Really? At least make Zuko's actor someone with natural black hair! 9_9

(JB would actually prefer they pick actual martial artists...)

Oh wait, sorry Sokka and Zuko's actors are still in talks. Nothing has been confirmed.

But I'm still offended they would even THINK of being in talks with them. This is all so jacked up. Are they expecting that little girl whose playing Katara to get a tan? A little girl. REALLY?

Screw this. I'm writing a letter.

If you're interested, here's where to write.

Edit 2:
Mr Mark Bakshi
President Features Production
5555 Melrose Avenue
Shulberg Building
Suite 211
Room 115
Los Angeles, CA 90038-3197

and

Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall
Kennedy/Marshall Company
619 Arizona Avenue, Fl. 2
Santa Monica, California 90401

For more information on a letter writing campaign, please visit:
[link]

And no. I'm not the only one pissed about this.


I'm seriously bothered by the implications that they would hire white actors for these roles. This would have been the perfect opportunity to bring in some new minority talent and they ignored it.

M. Night Shyamalan, Shame on you. I expected better of you.