So this last weekend The Last Airbender was released in theaters. I never watched the cartoon and know very little about the storyline, so needless to say I didn't see it. I did, however, see The A-Team which was the perfect film to see on a Fourth of July weekend. Nothing says
They don’t look Asian to me. In fact, one looks white and the other two brown, which you could say is middle-eastern in the setting (which is based on mythological
Another example is the horrid Dragonball: Evolution that was released in April 2008. It had nearly the exact same backlash against it due to the casting of Justin Chatwin as Goku. In reality, the film did poorly due to its budget, which was originally thought to upwards of $100 million, but it was revealed post-release that the budget was actually closer to $30 million. That’s less of a budget than the first Twilight movie.
The discussion of casting leads us to an article that was posted just after film, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, was released. The article talks about how the uproar of casting Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince shouldn't have been pointed towards Hollywood, but instead towards Ubisoft, who westernized the Middle-Eastern Prince with,
“his feather topped turban, the inevitable MC Hammer pants and the Aladdin-esque vests (where shirts are apparently optional). His adventures epitomize everything we love to fantasize about the Arabian Nights, where camels roam golden sand dunes, genies grant wishes and beautiful, veiled belly dancers hide in pillow-filled harems. The villains only add to the cultural fantasy, like the evil Vizier threatening to undermine the Sultan’s power or the sultry Kaileena, whose skimpy clothing (or lack thereof) would probably never fly in ancient Iranian culture. Prince of
All of this is true, but I don't see why Ubisoft should make any apologies for it. Video games, movies, and other forms of other entertainment media are about escaping reality into the fantastic, where only our imagination and ideas can take us. So in reality, the use of a “white prince” by
But here's the thing, why should this matter? There has been lots of cross-racial casting in movies that hasn’t caused such uproar. Remember Michael Clark Duncan playing the Kingpin in Daredevil?
There wasn’t an outcry, actually it was the opposite. Fans were pleases with the portrayal of Wilson Fisk. One reviewer even said, “Michael Clarke Duncan is the embodiment of The Kingpin, the city’s crime czar. His voice and physical presence are completely in tune with the role.”
An upcoming film adaptation of the game, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, will be released in 2011. Bruce Willis will be playing Kane and Jamie Foxx will be playing Lynch. In the game, Lynch is white, but do most people care? Foxx’s caliber of acting has put to rest any concerns about miscasting.
There was even a petition a few months ago to cast Donald Glover, who plays
So why the double-standard? In a perfect world, the best actor is always cast as for the role, but we live in a world far from perfect. If we can teach our kids that it’s ok for African-American kids to play Abraham Lincoln in their school play, why can’t we apply this same logic on a grand scale?
Look forward to another update on the weekend of the 23rd, when Comic-Con 2010 will be in full effect so expect some big news updates.
New Articles
It’s been a while since an update included links to my articles, so here are all the ones that haven’t be linked thus far.
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