The last airbender

Some viewer’s heads are spinning over the look of The Last Air bender, not over the fantasy action 3-D special effects, but over the faces of the main characters, which are largely white in the movie but Asian and Inuit in the popular Nickelodeon cartoon that inspired the film. Complicating the accusations of racial insensitivity over the casting is the fact that those casting decisions were made by director M. Night Shyamalan, who is of Asian descent himself. In fact, Shyamalan bristles at the accusations and insists that, not only is his cast as multicultural as possible, but also that it's his critics who are the real racists. Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz in The Last Air bender The characters in the TV series Avatar The Last Air bender created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, are clearly drawn from Asian and Inuit cultures, from their names to their costumes to their martial arts styles. The hero, Aang, is inspired by Tibetan Buddhist monks. His friends, Katara and Sokka, live in a realm of anoraks and igloos. Antagonist Zuko and his tribe appear as classical Chinese warriors.



Aang in Avatar The Last Airbender In the movie, all four characters were initially cast as Caucasian actors Noah Ringer (Aang), Nicola Peltz (Katara), Jackson Rathbone (Sokka), and Jesse McCartney (Zuko). Before shooting began, however, McCartney was replaced by Dev Patel, of Slumdog Millionaire fame. That change did not appease the project's critics, who noted that the heroes were still all white Westerners, while the only Asian in the principal cast was the villain.Katara in Avatar The Last Airbender The clearinghouse for the protests has been the website Racebending, which is calling for a boycott of the film. American actors of color rarely get to play the hero, if ever, said Marissa Lee, one of Racebending's co-founders, in a statement. We're really disappointed. Paramount felt that white actors were better suited to play heroes of color than hardworking, underrepresented actors who are actually of Asian or Inuit descent.