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.

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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

[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!