First off, I never "conceded" anything, because I never denied that the show was influenced predominately by non-white sources. I was pointing out the non-ASIAN sources. Not the white ones. (Unless the deffinition of "white" has changed to include Aztecs and Australian animals...) Where did you get the idea I was claiming Avatar was based off of "whites?"

Not really, seeing as how it's invisible. Have a guy stick out his hand, show some image distortion, and have some object magically move on its own. Walla. Airbending.

Because your point seemed to be that the all-white cast was acceptable because the Avatar world wasn't completely Asian.

Fine, not everything in the Avatar world is 100% Asian/Inuit, but so what? In my opinion, 70% of the Avatar world is still based off of Asian/Inuit culture, and yet there are absolutely NO Asian or Inuit people in the main cast. You don't seriously think that that isn't supposed to offend people, do you...? And none of the known actors LOOK their parts either... Jesse McCartney looks NOTHING like Zuko, Jackson Rathbone looks nothing like Sokka, and Nicola Peltz also looks NOTHING like Katara... Maybe if the main actors had even a SMALL resemblance to their characters, I would change my views a bit, but until then, FAIL...

And to all the people who seem to have a *craving* for claiming that this bickering is "pointless", why bother coming here? I mean, really, some of us ARE actually upset, and we have every right to be, so to all the people labelling this as "silly" or "pointless", why don't you take into account how OTHER people feel, and why this thread was even made...? This obviously isn't a minor thing, because it has upset A LOT of people all over the world, and has created a lot of controversy, there's even a freaking movement and actual website (and a very popular one I might add), based on this issue... So let us complain, and next time you have an issue like this, we *won't* label what you are offended by, as "silly". Seriously, think about other people...

The whole reason I got sucked into this stupid arguement is because either you or Chesis got upset at me for saying that I would be happy with the movie actors as long as they looked and acted like the characters they are playing. I was accused of ignoring the "asianness" of Avatar- which I feel I did not do. (At least as much as the two of you did with the Avatar's other influences.)

Where on earth did you get that idea? My sole point was that if you people are going to throw such a big stink about Avatar's cast not being Asian, you need to at least acknowledge that there are other influences in the show too, SOME of which are white.

Really? It didn't seem to work in Avatar. Lots and lots of people who saw a kid with a shaved head in Buddhist robes raised by monks couldn't figure out what culture he had come from. Instead, we get a hundred thousand wails of, "but Aang looks white to me!"

It's amazing how few minorities you see in fantasy. While I love the Harry Potter movies and the Narnia movies and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, it's only very rarely that Hollywood takes any sort of chance with fantasies starring blacks and Latinos and Asians. The reasoning usually is that these stories are based on European myths, so it's not really appropriate to have minority actors playing Frodo or the Pevensie kids.

Funny how when we've finally got a movie that's purposely not based on Western mythology, that argument doesn't seem to work the other way around.

You're missing a few points here. Let me give you an example. If you had to cast someone to play an Asian guy in a movie, would you cast Tiger Woods or Keanu Reeves? Got an answer?

Now does it change anything if you know that Tiger Woods is one-half Asian and Keanu Reeves is only a quarter? Should we cast Tiger Woods because he's technically more Asian than Keanu Reeves? Of course not. How an audience *perceives* you on screen is important. Audiences will see Tiger Woods as black. So he can't play an Asian guy, no matter how Asian he actually is. *That* is my point. It has nothing to do with denying anybody their cultural heritage to say that look *does* matter when it comes to ethnic portrayals on film.

There are the race-neutral productions like the "Nutcracker" you saw, which are usually done to give minorities a shot at the roles they would usually be excluded from. You see it in the theater a lot, which is wonderful. But how often does this happen on television or in the movies? There's still an uproar whenever a white comic book character like Nick Fury or the Kingpin is played by a black actor. But the thing is, there's very little noise when a white actor takes over a minority role. Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia? Fine. Justin Chatwin as Goku? Fine. Emile Hirch as Speed Racer? Not a peep. It's a double standard, and it' not pretty.

Avatar's casting is only getting as much attention as it is right now, because this is one of the rare cases where they went and whitewashed *all* the lead characters. That's pretty bad, even for Hollywood.