Depictions of Gender and Ethnicity in The Last Airbender
November 16th, 2010 | Published in Featured, General | 15 Comments
Notes on people with disabilities, and closing thoughts
Given this article analyzes the way The Last Airbender depicts underrepresented groups–based on M. Night’s own claims that “everyone is represented”–it would be remiss for us to not mention one of the most underrepresented groups in the media: People with disabilities.
“Fifty-six million Americans — 20% of the U.S. population — have a disability. Despite being the largest minority group in the country, people with disabilities remain virtually invisible in entertainment media.” – Screen Actors Guild
Season One of Avatar: The Last Airbender featured a character named Teo, a expert teen pilot with hang-glider attached to his wheelchair, who has flying skills rivaling the main character, Aang. The presence of Teo and Season Two’s new main character, Toph, established that people with disabilities had a place in the narrative and world of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series.
In any adaptation, secondary characters are eliminated and changed. Teo’s episode, set at the Northern Air Temple, was not as closely connected to the main plot line as many of the season’s other episodes. While disappointing, it might be understandable that the heroes not encounter the Air Temple and that Teo’s character would not be in the movie.
On the other hand, M. Night did set a scene at Teo’s home–the Northern Air Temple. For this scene, Shyamalan created a brand new character, who was not in the series, in place of Teo: The old Asian man who sells Aang to the Fire Nation for a bag of coins. In doing so, M. Night Shyamalan erased one of television’s only characters with a disability in his film adaptation, and replaced that character with a traitorous character of color.
The absence of people with disabilities from The Last Airbender is not a unique phenomenon. Admittedly, many films do not have characters with disabilities. Perhaps the only reason the absence of people with disabilities is notable in The Last Airbender is because the absence of characters with a disability is a regression from the animated series.
According to 2007 and 2008 Casting Data Reports statistics collected and analyzed by Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the entertainment industry continues to under-represent women, people of color, and people with disabilities.
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender reflects an industry where white people are the central focus, people of color are subjugated or villainous, women are disempowered, and people with disabilities are invisible.
Other Hollywood productions aren’t doing much better, but the directors of those films aren’t claiming to be the most diverse movie of all time.
Other Hollywood directors did not adapt an original property–one that did handle gender, culture, and disability competently–and completely undo those progressive characterizations.
This article is comprised primarily of quotes from film critics, bloggers and feedback from Racebending.com volunteers present at a screening of the film that Paramount Pictures offered the Asian American community on June 28th. Our analysis of the sensitivity of these depictions was further informed by comparisons to the animated series the film was based on, Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as our understanding of cultural competence continuum , Allport’s Scale, and the development of multicultural organizations.
Thank you Racebending, thank you for being vigilent and exact with the holes in M. Night’s inexcusable and flimsy argument on “diversity”. This film not only fails miserably artisticly, but fails to hide its racist message. “Birth of a Nation” was more subtle.
Excellent article! I have yet to see the movie, but I really don’t plan to see it due to what I have learned about it’s bad casting, and just it’s failure in general.
Actually, I’m a freshman in college and a film major, and also a person of color (African American). While I didn’t follow the show a whole lot as a kid, I still thought it was and is a cool show, probably because it showed people of color saving the day. I really do hope that as a filmmaker, I can legitimately boast a film with a very diverse cast, and when I mean diverse cast, they will have a lot more than 5 lines and will be fleshed out characters (not caricatures).
It is a shame that British people are demonized nowadays in movies as villains constantly, and usually the cruellest, and no-one says a word. is it their colour or their nationality that makes this de rigeur and seemingly acceptable. When black people were often cast in villain roles their was outcry – blaxploitation. What to make of this Britsploitation?
It is so funny and true how much M Night is a hack as a director, and producer that he still has a job (ie. village, lady in the water). Seriously annoying how he says that he cast an asian lead actor in this movie, though coincidentally he is Indian just like guess who? It’s quite annoying considering I’m of Korean descent and I don’t care if they cast a Korean person, but rather follow the storyline better with more Chinese influence. M Night casting an Indian as the “Asian” actor is insulting considering that the characters of Avatar is a more “oriental” asian especially for the character zuko.
I was a fan of the Avatar series and was so disappointed in the movie I only watched the first 30 minutes of it, and that was pretty hard to do too. M Night seems to always have his own agenda with his ethnocentric/egotistical attitude, that he doesn’t see that he portrays others poorly as long as he can promote what he wants. He should of played the Fire Lord in the movie because he’s so similar and he feels justified in what he does since he “included” a diverse cast, but in reality is trying to only help his own race get into more movies (personally calling patel about the part) and feels like he can do what he wants since he is “asian” and the director/producer (all powerful, better than everyone, knows better, and justified in his actions).-jackass
Honestly, I think that Aang the character wasn’t too badly portrayed though acting is obviously not his forte. I can’t say anything good about the script, even though a great script was already made in the series. I have no problem with making movies diverse if you want to, or not, but don’t hack up a great story that’s already been made just for the sake of diversification if that was really his goal. The Hulk wasn’t an African American, nor was Batman Chinese, Superman wasn’t Irish because they never were those in the comics and that’s okay and I wouldn’t want some director to change that.
I can’t believe what M.Night did to the source material to get his rediculous perception of ‘multi-cultural’ to the screen… It was nothing short of a push to employ, by vast percentage, Indians.
It doesn’t matter artisticly whether or not each race was fairly portrayed when they were portrayed entirely wrong.
The Fire Nation where supposed to be reminiscent of fuedal age Japan, the Water Nation where aboriginal innuits, the Earth Nation were China in the boom of empire and agriculture, and the Air nomads where an analogue of Tibetan monks.
The whole idea of completely re-writing a source material to make it ‘multi-cultural’ is the most racist thing about the entire aborted movie.
I sincerely hope this idiot is never again allowed to pillage such brilliant source material and turn it into such a waste of film and time.
Beautifully done, and very inclusive. I honestly think that despite its moderate commercial success, this movie has truly and thoroughly driven the last nail into the film trilogy’s coffin. Keep up your hard work, Racebending.com, it gladdens my heart to see that there are those out there who were as offended as I was and are just as loud and vocal as I am.
I wouldn’t say that the British are demonized at all. There’s a Hollywood trope of British English being “generic fantasy language” in a lot of cases and a lot of British actors have a certain vitality to villainous roles (being a good villain is much harder then being a hero) that comes from training in stagecraft rather then being a pretty face brought up by the Disney Channel or something. But I don’t see anything saying Brit is bad.
Interesting… I always considered the Sokka and Katara to be Eurasian or mixed-race… I guess that’s the beauty of animated shows. Asian culture or not, Avatar was NOT an anime show; it had Western animation styles too, and some of the characters, like Admiral Zhao, seemed overwhelmingly Caucasian.
(wait, did you like Avatar because it showed pale people trying to destroy things?)
And I hope you know “people of color” is supposed to refer to Black people… not everyone who’s not white; that’s just nonsensical.
Actually, Zhao was an Asian character, as acknowledged by voice actor Jason Isaacs. When he saw that the character he was hired to voice was Asian, he even asked if it would be necessary for him to use an Asian accent. He was advised instead to use an American accent because overwhelmingly all of the characters on the show speak with an American accent.
“People of color” is a term used in the United States, to describe all people who are not white, emphasizing common experiences of racism in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color
Wait now, are you saying there shouldn’t be ANY white people in the film? Not even Admiral Zhao, an evil character (oh lawdy, the racism!)? Come on, just ONE white guy…
Seems a bit hypocritical to me. Over at the Thor scene, where the black Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall (“the whitest of the gods”), they’re simply trivializing the culture and background… to an even greater extent than in Avatar, and with even more hypocrisy (we KNOW the Norse gods were Northern European in appearance).
Do you stand behind the Thor’s diversity cast? In my mind, they stand on nigh equal ground (I mean, The Last Airbender sucked in every way possible, so it’s hard to say).
Asian and Inuit roles (of which there are precious few in Hollywood) going to a white actor is a huge blow to the Asian American, Inuit and Native American communities and their struggle for representation. Such co-opting of Asian American and Native faces – whether fictional or based on real people – is standard in Hollywood.
A Caucasian role going to a performer of color, although perhaps not a perfect match for the character, has almost no impact on the overall opportunity for white children and consumers to enjoy and relate to the wide array of Hollywood characters that are white, including much more predominant characters in 2011′s “Thor.”
Hey did you hear? Not only has TLA been nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Film of 2010, but it also the front runner. Now M Night has a new addition to his shelf of awards. This time it will be well earned.
That’s the spirit. I’m was also an AA film major, and I’ve been studying these issues very closely as it’s getting time for me to do my own thing, and I don’t believe that Hollywood is ever going to change.
This article was really informative as I had no intention of rewarding Hollywood stupidity by paying money to see this travesty (regardless of how curious I was). I am now pretty sure that I am conciously going to try to cast people of color in prominent roles in all my film projects in ways that make sense and are as far from stereotype as possible. Good luck to you.
The deleted version of the “African-American village” scene is a LOT worse. Kudos to the editing staff for having the common sense to cut it.