Ok, so there's this huge movement going on at a livejournal community called Aang Ain't White: http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/646.html

Please excuse me if this has already been mentioned in the official Avatar movie post but I'd love for more people to join in this honorable movement! As an Asian American, I feel so happy to know that people are actually caring about things like rasicm in hollywood. And I also feel proud that my generation is growing up better than the last generation did...the generation of Jim Crow laws and Japanese internment camps. *shrudders*

But...although most people agree that Sokka and Katara are NOT white one bit, what about Aang? Is he white? Or Tibetian? Or may be a white Tibetian? What about Zuko? A lot of people have said that Zuko and Azula and their whole family are Asian. May be, they definitely could pass off as Asian. But could they be white? Or half white, half Asian? Or does it really not matter? xD

I agree that the casting choices stink... (Jessie Mcartney as ZUKO? Even the oldest Jonas brother would have been better!)

But I don't think it matters if the avatar characters are white or not. Sure Avatar's an animea, and some might argue that art style implys the characters are "asian". But keep in mind, animea was actually based off of Walt Disney's animations, and Walt Disney was white, and so were his characters. (The people, not the animals.) Speed Racer was an asian guy's attempt to bring super-hero comics to his country.

So Avatar's style, which some argue isn't really animea because it's American, is a rip-off off of a rip-off.

Personally, I don't care what nationality the actors are from. I just think they should resemble their characters. Zuko's actor should have dark hair, pale skin, and smallish eyes. Whereas Aang should actually be played by a kid, with slightly less pale skin than Zuko, dark hair, and big greyish eyes. Katara and Sokka shouldn't be asians, because they don't look asian, they look like the inuits their character designs were based off of. It's as simple as that.

This little petition thing might have worked had it been done before or during the casting tryouts. But, the thing is once a movie company and an actor/actress agree to do a part, they get "signed on" which means they enter into a contract that's legally binding. That means each party has to fullfil their end of the deal and the only way it can be canceled is if both agree to it. Otherwise the one who breaks the contract can face a serious lawsuit.

Now, I highly doubt any of the known cast members would willingly give up what could be viewed as a role of a lifetime, so that leaves Viacom and the only way they're getting out of the contract is if they do what's called a 'buy out' which means giving the actors a certain sum of money until they agree to the contract cancelation. And if you know anything about the corporate world, you know that they don't spend money unless the chances are good that they'll make a profit from it.

So unless they foresee that the casting is going to cost them more at the boxoffice than the buy out, chances are it ain't happening. The petition is going to need an insane amount of signees if it ever hopes to even reach the desktop of a lowly secretary.

And in my opinion, I think some people are going a little far when they say the cast is a result of "Hollywood racism," since all the cast is approved by M. Night, who is himself east Indian, and whose culture has a major impact in all areas of the show.

So if you think the cast so far is 'meh,' blame it on poor casting quality instead of racism. /endlongpsa

I'm pretty happy with the cast except for Jesse McCartney but we just have to wait and see. Everyone thought the same about Heath (RIP) and Christian Bale. Look at what happened to them. I also think that Uncle Iroh shouldnt have that big of an American Accent.

What about Greg Baldwin as Iroh. I think he could pull it off. Plus, we would get Iroh's voice on the big screen.

I'm too lazy to make a letter. Yu-Aang-Oh time.!

Go post this card everywhere!

I have brown hair, am I not white? Yes, I am. You, sir or madam, are wrong. Since it was a joke card, I deem it "Badly Executed".

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