I was so excited they were making the Last Airbender into a live action film. I actually made sure not to read any reviews for the movie so I could go into the movie without any mental hindrances.
It was awful. Possibly one of the worst movies I've seen in years. (Though I heard Jonah Hex was pretty bad too!)
One of the major complaints from fans was the white-washing of key characters and how names were mispronounced to be more "Asian authentic". The racist casting practices got me thinking about how Americans view Asians and how the industry views Americans.
So, here we go!
Americans have this inability to tell different Asian culture groups apart. They see an Asian person and they think they are Chinese. They honestly can't tell--and don't even know that it's possible to tell-- the difference between someone from China, Korea, or Japan. Americans just lump them all together.
A common problem is that Americans think that "white" is a title held exclusively by Caucasians/Europeans. I'm still very puzzled as to where this thinking comes from. I lived in Japan for 4 years and watched Chinese and Korean TV for fun too. I never saw any "yellow" skin. The most I saw was people being tanned from either working outside and/or going to the beach. Otherwise most Asians I saw were "white", and sometimes even more "white" than Caucasians. xD
Another common mistake Americans make is that big eyes and fair skin automatically mean someone is Caucasian/European. This is why when they see anime they think Asians are trying to make characters look look Caucasian. Especially when you see blond, red, etc hair colors added to the mix.
I already explained about the skin color. As for the hair, well.... they give people green and purple and pink hair too. The truth is, in anime, hair color often has little to do with the nationality of a character. (Though sometimes it does, and in those cases they actually have to point it out. Otherwise the audience wouldn't know to take notice!)
The history behind Big-Eyes in animation is quite interesting. Big-Eye's does come from American animation, but it doesn't actually have anything to do with nationality or ethnicity. Walt Disney made the style world-wide popular with his creations, like Mickey Mouse and his first full length animation movie Snow White. The reason he used Big-Eyes was to show emotion and youth (age). Often the younger a character is, the bigger the eyes. Larger eyes also make it easier to show emotion, especially with animals and non-human characters. (This is why in Snow White all the animals had big eyes, as well as the non-human dwarves, and the hag. Snow White herself, as well as the Queen and Prince, had small "normal" eyes.)
The Granddaddy of Manga, Osamu Tezuka, brought Big Eyes to Asia. He was inspired by Bambi, Mickey Mouse, and Betty Boop. While W. Disney (the man, not the company) mainly used "Big-Eyes" for animals and villains, Osuma Tezuka took it to the extreme: he used them on everyone! Adults, villains, they all got the Big-Eye Treatment.
So, what does this tell us? Big Eyes in animation do NOT mean that someone is Caucasian or Europeans. It is simply a style of art used to convey a specific type of meaning.
But most Americans are not informed of this. The history of cartoons is just not something most Americans care about. Cartoons are "for kids" and are therefore not worth their time.
This is why you get so much confusion with something like The Last Airbender. They think because Aang is white and has big eyes he must be "white". And because Katana and Sokka are "brown" they must not be "Asian Looking". (I actually saw one person explain that "Cold places are where white people live and hot places are for darker people." Apparently they never heard of the Inuit--commonly called the Eskimos.) And because most Americans have no interest in Asian/Foreign cultures they're completely and totally blind to the blatant cultural references to China, Korea, and Japan. (And that's not even talking about religions!)
Now about the names being "re" pronounced.
People say that the name changes were legitimate because it made it "authentic". This just shows that both Mr. Night knows almost nothing about Central/East Asia. Mr. Night used the Japanese pronunciations, when he should have used Mandarin (Chinese)--the language the show uses.
And on top of all that, except for Toph, most of the names weren't even real "asian" names. They were just Mandarin phrases squished together into one word. Essentially: Made Up Words. So if the creates had a particular way of saying the names, that is the CORRECT way.
Probably the reason most people don't care about the white-washing in TLA or how the series was practically raped by Mr. Night is because it's based off a "kid's cartoon". Apparently, content only matters if it's bad. Everything else like... oh... an interesting story, well thought out script... THAT stuff... doesn't matter. Why waste it on kids? They're dumb anyway.
......
This completely ignores the fact that so many kids AND adults have loved this series. When I went to see the movie, I was surrounded by 20-something men. MEN! And they were military men too! (We live near a base and you can tell by their hair-cut.) Clearly this "cartoon" was good enough reason for military men to go see the movie. Shame it was so badly done!
I just don't understand why people think it's ok to make bad movies and shows because they're for kids. The Last Airbender TV show proved that you can make excellent stories and kids will love them. And so will adults.
That's a lot of viewer-ship... thrown to the wind because people decide kids are too stupid to know a good show from a bad show so why bother?
(sighs)
Anyway. I'm a Whitey-McWhite-White American and if I can tell the difference between a Western European themes show and Eastern Asian themed show, no one else in my country has an excuse. Learn your world cultures people! It's interesting and it'll keep you from sounding like a racist ass.
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