peppy blonde and stunning

[bossymarmalade]

"When you take a beloved story that has a fan base, you'll never be able to make everyone happy," says Ricketts, the casting director, who was not involved with the casting of principal roles. "There's been some talk that we're casting authentic Asians as a response to the backlash, which is totally wrong because our world is multi-ethnic and the 'Avatar' world will be multi-ethnic."

Let me make this perfectly clear.

I am not -- I would guess that most of the people protesting Avatar whitewashing are not -- primarily unhappy that they are ruining "a beloved story".

I am unhappy that they are DEMONIZING MY ETHNICITY. I am unhappy that they have cast white people in the heroic roles and Asians as the flavourful background. I am unhappy that the story is now about the peaceful white Air & Water Tribes who are the targets of genocide at the hands of the warlike brown Fire Nation.

That's the reason for unhappiness, DeeDee Ricketts. And you should know how much you've contributed to it, because every time you open your mouth you say something even more ignorant and hurtful. Every time the people behind this movie try to scramble to cover their tracks, they make it even *worse*. "Our world is multi-ethnic and the Avatar world will be multi-ethnic"? Yes, but apparently with the same silencing racism, the same use of Asian culture as set-dressing and Asian people as oddities, and the added bonus of making white people both martyred victim and brave, wise hero.

Let's not pretend, DeeDee, that there was ever any fucking concern about "making everyone happy". You want to make white people happy, because according to your standards they are the ones who matter. Don't try to wriggle this around and make it seem like the people protesting, the ones who are seeing one of the few positive representations of themselves that does not centre around whiteness being taken away and given to those that hath, that we are unreasonably "unhappy".

It's not just fannish unhappiness you're hearing. It's anger, and pain, and determination. You can't make me happy; you don't have that ability or that privilege. You don't even have the first clue. When your response to protests about forced invisibility and writing whiteness over Asianness includes the phrase "authentic Asians", you have just proven your own misguided and shit-stupid belief that YOU are the authority and the arbiter of what is authentically Asian.

This is why people are unhappy. Not because they're worried you'll dress the Water Tribes in aquamarine instead of sky blue, or whatever trivialization of the "fan base" you're entertaining as being our major concern.

We are unhappy because you have taken our story, in which we were the good ones and the bad ones and everybody in-between, a story in which for once we didn't have to deal with how the white folks felt about our strength and beliefs, and you've made us the chaff and the misguided and the corrupt and the genocidal. We are unhappy and we are speaking up about it.

This might not be something that you associate with Asians (despite your vast wellspring of knowledge regarding our "authenticity" and clothing and whatnot), but get ready for a lot more of it, DeeDee. Get ready.

---

further reading
. drelfina: rice porridge - what do you know about my culture?
. deepad: to burn a bridge is sometimes as necessary as to build one - using a person's own culture to silence and dismiss them, as demonstrated by will shetterly

. an informative and concise press release regarding the aang-ain't-white movement

Comments

[beachlass.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

They just keep saying and doing things that are worse and worse! It boggles the mind.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

that fucking jackasss said WHAT???????!!!!!!!


*explodes from the sheer rage*

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

I am amazed they still let her talk in public; she has done more to increase people's anger about the insensitive and racist way the movie's being handled than anything else.

[supersyncspaz7.livejournal.com]

...okay, what? WHAT?! I don't even watch very much Avatar, and I'm still annoyed with the stupid that is coming out of everyone's mouths about the casting.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

I've seen that response all over the place -- people who aren't even in this "fan base" that DeeDee's dismissively referring to, who are nevertheless rip-roaring mad over the racist casting! It's AWESOME.

[supersyncspaz7.livejournal.com]

I think the crazy thing is that I've wanted to start watching it ever since the news came out. I even downloaded two episodes because I was curious.

[chrismm.livejournal.com]

*grinds teeth*

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

My teeth are jagged nubs!!!

[jewelianna.livejournal.com]

The world might be multi-ethnic, but this story (from the little I know of it) is not. It's one thing if they're telling the story of some kids from LA or London, but this is clearly not a story where the ethnicities of the main characters are ambiguous.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The ethnicities of the main characters are not only unambiguous, they're in keeping with the traditions and beliefs of their cultural groups as designed within the show! Are they seriously thinking that having a bunch of solely white people who dress, speak, worship and eat like Tibetan Buddhist monks & nuns is in any way *appropriate*?!?

[indirajames.livejournal.com]

'Multi-ethnic' always seems to mean 'predominantly white people now with added Others'. I mean, does this show even have "white" characters? From what little I've seen it doesn't look like it.

There sure has been a lot of stupidity making itself even louder than usual lately.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

It does NOT have any white characters; everybody is Inuit or Asian. EVERYBODY.

You are so bang-on with the usual definition of multi-ethnic it ain't even funny. AAARGH!

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

A translation

[sixpita.livejournal.com]

"When you take a beloved story that has a fan base, you'll never be able to make everyone happy," says Ricketts, the casting director, who was not involved with the casting of principal roles. "There's been some talk that we're casting authentic Asians as a response to the backlash, which is totally wrong because our world is multi-ethnic and the 'Avatar' world will be multi-ethnic." the primary goal is to make money. And we don't think that any one is going to pay to see a bunch of Asians. We know that movies like Hero and Slumdog Millionaire were hits, but those were flukes. It'll never happen again.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

This is just increasing my determination to finish Avatar the cartoon, and avoid the film entirely.

Let's not pretend, DeeDee, that there was ever any fucking concern about "making everyone happy". You want to make white people happy, because according to your standards they are the ones who matter. Don't try to wriggle this around and make it seem like the people protesting, the ones who are seeing one of the few positive representations of themselves that does not centre around whiteness being taken away and given to those that hath, that we are unreasonably "unhappy".

ALL of this.

[deepad]

Preach it, sister.
(The levels of fail just keep rising, don't they? You'd think from a PR point of view, if nothing else, they'd shut the fuck up, but no.)

[itsbeenvery.livejournal.com]

I feel like movie!Avatar is going to taste like "being an expect on your culture".

(the other links) I WAS READING THAT TODAY AND JUST...Shetterly going on about the trust fund only covering tuition (so rough!) and Cramer seeming to just not get how posting someone's full name online is not something you do.

[robanybody.livejournal.com]

Just when you think these guys can't fail any harder, someone else opens up their mouth and lets out more stupid, racist thoughts.

[chaobunny.livejournal.com]

Agreed 100% with everything you just said.

I can't believe Deedee Rickets hasn't been fired yet. The woman is an ignorant idiot who makes me naseuous. Ugh.

[trumpeterofdoom.livejournal.com]

I have zero interest in Avatar, only because I don't tend to be a fan of anime in general, but the amount of ignorance coming from that. That thing. How fucking stupid do these people to NOT GET IT????

[ciderpress.livejournal.com]

jeesy chreesy, maggie, have they invested in some kind of Asian-dar that they can point at people so it will tell them how authentically "Asian" someone is? Will they be able to tell from our buck teeth and slitty eyes and accented English and how we smell of curry and how short we all are?

Wow. I didn't even know I could get this angry. I mean this and this SF/F thing? SMASH SMASH SMASH. Oh, there's more letter writing to be done.

[zarahemla.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I have seen Avatar a total of maybe five times, and the only white character I ever saw was big, and shaggy, and had four feet, and Aang rode on him sometimes (could he fly? I don't remember). Multi-ethnic, LOL.

[geneli4.livejournal.com]

i'm still sort of completely stunned by of the phrase authentic Asians here, as if the white people cast into these roles are somehow made Asian by it. WHAT?

[opal-skies.livejournal.com]

*randomly stepping in* Well said, my friend. You should x-post this over to the comments on the Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/01/AR2009030102088_Comments.html
This woman disgusts me more and more with every news snippet. Her complete and utter disregard for what's going on her, and her inability to even speak respectfully with regards to the cultures this story contends with is revolting. :-/

[pigtailedgirl.livejournal.com]

Getting out my pen for more letters.

[jae-w.livejournal.com]

Can the movie's PR strategy possibly be to make sure that no one anywhere will ever want to see it? Because all I associate with it now are massive amounts of fail.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

I was going to say - DeeDee Ricketts is allowed to talk to the press? For real?

Maybe this is all like The Producers - they want everyone to be completely turned off to the movie so they get a huge loss. Right?

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

I can't decide if I want to laugh or cry at the stupid of the casting director.

[withdiamonds.livejournal.com]

Authentic Asians? As opposed to the fake ones they're going to turn the white actors into? Or what? And also, "don't smile because that's not how you look?" Holy crap, Maggie. That's a whole lot of fail in one place, that is.

[navia.livejournal.com]

Authentic Asians, wow. So he's admitting his movie is filled with fake Asians, i.e., white actors in yellowface? Is there no PR person for this movie, or do we just not count as part of the public to be related to?

[lemniskate.livejournal.com]

You know, a couple of years ago my son came out with some really strange and troubling stuff directed at an african american boy in his class; telling him he couldn't play with him because he was black, and when that got some of that exciting (if not quite comprehensible) attention, he verged on some racist epithets. Of course the teachers and I got right in and dealt with the problem in various ways, trying to deal with both the behavior and the root of it (which we had to just guess at, other than his in-loco-grandparents, southern and traditional). But one of the things I did was start pointing out characters that he loved on the shows he loved, pointing out that they looked different than he did, but they were smart and brave and strong; Avatar was one of the easiest to use as an object (if clunky, but the autism makes clunky almost necessary) lesson for him, because they were characters he wanted to be like, the main point /always/ that what people look like doesn't matter, it's what we DO that matters.

To see what they're doing to the movie breaks my heart, because I'm just not going to let him see how they've fucked it up. And there's no way that they're getting a penny from me to support what they've done ever since they started making this movie.

[copracat]

Ricketts, I do not like the way in which your world is multi-ethnic, what with the general lack of multi in the ethnicity and its blatant one-sidedness.

Just when you thought sounding lead-line of fail had reached its lowest depth, there's the Mariana Trench!

[mavencree.livejournal.com]

You know.... the only people in this whole show that I viewed as 'white' were the swamp-benders. Not the most flattering of lights. Everyone else - Asian and Innuit. My 5 year old nephew gets that!