Fans of the original Nickelodeon cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender might not like the casting for the upcoming sure-thing blockbuster movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
The lead role, Aang - from what was originally a very Asian-inspired story world - is played by... (wait for it)... Noah Ringer, a white kid!
The other leading roles are also played by Europeans. Not that there's anything wrong with being European, but in roles with names like, well, Aang, Katara, Sokka and Zuko, you might expect to find one tiny Asian.
In a move sure to enrage longtime fans of the show, the part of Appa, the giant, cuddly flying Bison, will be played by a box of McDonald's french fries.
Paramount defended the casting, saying;
Night's vision of 'The Last Airbender' includes a large and ethnically diverse cast that represents cultures from around the world,
This includes, apparently, a wide range of ethnicities drawn from even the most remote corners of Europe. Unless you are an extra. It seems the extras in Avatar are pretty ethnic, in the best tradition of, say, Tarzan movies.
I heard about these casting choices a while back, and I find them rather inexplicable; I really don't understand why he did this.
I shouldn't be surprised, though; one of the (many) horrible things about the recent adaptation of Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy was the whitening and blondification of the main characters.
Posted by: Beadgirl | 05/26/2010 at 11:42 AM