Avatar: The Last Airbender Culture Comparison

Note: This video was created by Chaobunny12 in response to the ongoing Avatar controversy. In the beginning slide for the video, she writes:

This video is for those of you who argue that the Avatar characters look white, not Asian or Inuit. It’s for people who claim that he culture of the Avatar world is essentially American and don’t see any Asian culture in Avatar.

The video has no sound, but the images speak for themselves.

For those of you who can’t see the video, this is a great visual essay that does the same thing.

(Thanks to readers JSConnect and ali_wildgoose for sending these in!)

Update: For the readers that haven’t been paying close attention to the links, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a popular cartoon that is heavily influenced by Asian/Inuit cultures (see above.) A movie was recently announced based on the anime, featuring an all-white cast. Hence the ensuing controversy.

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Comments

aimerrouge wrote:

I don’t really follow this area, but I have always assumed the avatars (I guess that’s what they’re called, right?) were either fully Asian or bi-racial (Asain and Caucasian) in appearance. Maybe my eyes are deceiving me. I am assuming, it is non-Asians who are insisting there is no Asian culture in the avatars.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 1:22 pm ¶
Cynthia wrote:

The animated characters look white? Really? They look Asian or Inuit to me.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 2:12 pm ¶
kate wrote:

The fact that they are shooting this movie in Asia and do not have any Asians in the cast just adds insult to injury. The culture and settings in the show are undeniably Asian. Shamalan should be ashamed of himself.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 2:37 pm ¶
mistersquid wrote:

Did you receive my last contribution on this topic or is it inappropriate in your opinion?

Here’s a repost just in case. If you consider it inappropriate, I hope you don’t mind telling me so by email (the email above will work).

=========

That video, with its propagandistic “Asian” flute soundtrack, makes the point that the Avatar characters appear white only stronger. Two words: anime eyes.

Quoting myself: “To my mind, [Susan J.] Napier is much nearer the mark when she reminds us that Oshii Mamoru suggests that the ‘de-Japanizing of [anime] characters’ is ‘part of a deliberate effort by modern Japanese to “evade the fact that they are Japanese” ‘ (’Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke ([Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke] 25), a statement reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki’s assertion that ‘the Japanese hate their own faces’ (qtd on 25).”

The imperative that protagonists in anime have wide “Western” eyes (evil and supernumerary characters may retain epicanthic folds) has been obeyed by non-Japanese anime artists and this no-slant-eye-for-the-good-guys is evident in your beloved Avatar series.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 3:12 pm ¶
brad wrote:

Misterquid,

Not all Asians have monolided/slanted eyes. Right? Also, anime has been around fro how many years? Forty or fifty years?

Regardless of what you may think, the characters in the film are Asian and Inuit. They are all non-white characters. But not one Asian is cast as a lead character.

This is typical of Hollywood.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 3:42 pm ¶
Persephone wrote:

I’m still really mad about the casting thing, and I will totally send this link to anyone I see making the ridiculous argument that the characters are supposed to be white.

Although the picture essay needs more Zuko, it must be said. Everything needs more Zuko. And less Jessie McCartney, please.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:22 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

0:58 is the new screen for my laptop!!

This is the problem, when AMericans ( and westerners in general) are not familiar with asian cultures or ppl, when they are innudated with stereotypes of what an asian person is like ( to cue them in that someone/thing IS Asian), then they don’t see Asian culture.

EVEN WHEN IT IS IN FRONT OF THEM.

And quiet frankly, if it fits their view of the world, they don’t care. So you’ll have ppl denying the truth, even after they realize what it is.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:25 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

@cynthia,
Its in the eyes. They have big eyes, my dear. Bigger than whats “expected”. And some of them have VERY light skin. It takes ppl some time to see this , however.
No excuses though.
=D

@kate
Shamalan is trying to make money ( THE PRIME purpose of Hollywood) and get his next deal. Honestly, sux for him. I think thats why talented ppl stay out of Hollywood.

I guess a movie is better than no movie? : -/

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:31 pm ¶
elle wrote:

Mistersquid, go draw a smiley face,the most basic type of face drawing, and after your done, tell me what is its race. If you said white, you’d probably be right, as white is assumed to be the default ethnicity in all western animation. In western animation, when animators want to signify a different race, they would use a signifier for different groups,(single folded eyes for East Asians,puffy lips and big noses for Africans,feathers for Native Americans, turbans for middle easterners and so on) to show their “otherness”.
In Japan, were they remained mostly a insular society from Eurocentric colonalization, Japan has never had to put up with the idea of white as normative or superior,sure some of them will dye their hair blond or brown or red, and adapt some western fashions,but racial self-hatred? Hardly, true racial self-hatred comes from when disawows the most basic parts of their culture,like native names,morals, language, or religion, and there are hardly any Japanese Christians.
So for Japanese animators, the smiley face for them is Japanese,not white, because why would you need to add a signifier like a monolid eye to differentiate, if your audience already looks like you, you look like your audience, and your main character looks like you and your audience.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:46 pm ¶
LTP wrote:

I was wondering when you’d cover this. So happy to see it here!

I’d love to point out this article to those that argue the “westernization” of anime characters, or how they “appear white” in drawings: http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:47 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

Ever since this controversy broke I’ve been close attention to it even though I’ve admittedly never watched this show before. The video above was really nice and validly makes it point that Avatar is an ASIAN-inspired show. Anyone who denies all the Asian themes and backdrop is just being pigheaded about the whole matter.

The video also nicely depicts how physcially similar the Avatar characters are to real life people whose cultures influenced the show. The only thing that throws people off are the light eyes. This goes back to the widely held assumption that Europeans are supposedly the only people in the world who can possess light eyes (and hair). Also I don’t get why they don’t get Asian and Inuit actors who could simply wear contacts? That way the characters would look more realistic. I’ve seen the white actors chosen and they looked nothing like the characters, except for having matching light eyes!

@MisterSquid

The “de-Japanization” of anime is constantly being debated and there seems to be no clear consensus on the matter. I always thought the Japanese just liked to be highly creative with their character’s looks kind of like how real life people often like to change up their appearances from time to time using hair dye and contacts. Also alot of times the characters don’t look realistic; I mean how many times have you met people in real life with green hair and red eyes? Anyway Avatar is not an anime so we can’t assume its creators followed anime conventions in every possible way.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 4:51 pm ¶
Lauren O wrote:

Wait.

Wait.

People actually think the cultures and people portrayed in that show are white?

I need to go put on my head brace now to make sure my brain doesn’t explode.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 6:20 pm ¶
ras wrote:

I must have been under a rock regarding this issue… I’m dumbstruck that there are actually people arguing that the characters and series are not Asian or Inuit inspired.

People are actually trying to justify the all-white casting of the movie (which I was totally unaware of) by arguing that the series is based in white culture?

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 6:35 pm ¶
Phrone wrote:

I think if anyone argued that Avatar didn’t have any traces of Asian culture, than that would be absurd. There’s clearly a lot there that’s been influenced by Asia.

However, what gets me worried about this is two points.
1. I was never sure — I don’t have enough knowledge about the subject — to tell whether it was really trying to portray Asia or trying to portray Asia as it is seen by non-Asian Americans. I think there’s a big difference between those two, although not totally relevant towards the movie casting controversy.
2. It might be possible to argue that they took white characters and placed them in an Asian environment. That would be extremely problematic in itself. However, it becomes even more complicated when the question becomes “Well, do they look Asian or do they look white?” I’ve heard the argument before that a lot of anime characters don’t “look Japanese”, but look like whites…which I never really understood. A lot of anime eyes tend to be drawn with something that looks like “>”*, which I always thought represented the monolidded eye. (Although the DBZ casting really threw me for a loop. I don’t think anyone thought Goku was white.)

*I apologize for that explanation fail. I can’t think of any clearly white anime characters who show their eyes (the only one I could think of was Bandit Keith, but he always wears sunglasses…) but I think they’re generally drawn differently.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 7:13 pm ¶
Sippy wrote:

As an Avatar fan, I don’t believe I’ll be seeing it upon its release.

For anyone who has seen Avatar, there are certain scenes in which viewers will see a character speaking with an Asian accent. This is obviously applicable due to the nature of the show. And so… if I see a Caucasian actor dressing up as an Asian character and mimicking an Asian accent, I am most sure that this will infuriate a lot of people. Just think about all the old movies that depicted Asian stereotypes. I personally think this was not the smartest of decisions on behalf of the casting directors.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 7:19 pm ¶
Evan Carden wrote:

I’d heard about this, but hadn’t really believed it. I mean even if you don’t watch the show, it shows up in the wikipedia article:

“Explicitly stated influences include Chinese art and history, Japanese anime, Hinduism (India), Taoism (China), Buddhism (India),[26] and Yoga (India).[27] The production staff employs a cultural consultant, Edwin Zane, to review scripts…”

I’ll admit, I missed Water Tribe=Inuit, but only because I wasn’t really thinking about real world connections and it’s very slightly less blatantly obvious than the Asian influences and characters are.

That’s just bizarre.

Of course, it is being written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan…

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 8:00 pm ¶
nm wrote:

I know this is OT, and I appreciate the good intention of the video maker and the work that went into it. However, from an East Asian PoV many of the sets of images do not correspond. Viewing the video I kept wondering: “why this and this together?” Reading the comments on Youtube, I saw none of this hardly mattered, and got the sense of how visual stereotypes work to construct Asian as a race. So this is how “we” are thrown into the Asian category… I’ve nothing against casting Asians for Avatar. But they may be aiming at something like Sayuri, after all.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 8:26 pm ¶
nm wrote:

… so ironically, casting Caucasians may not be all that bad.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 8:34 pm ¶
theboxman wrote:

@Mr. Squid

Putting aside the fact that I’ve generally found Susan Napier’s analyses of anime problematic on a number of levels — her tendency to make sweeping and arguably orientalizing generalizations and her almost complete focus on the story content and thematics with little attention to the history of visuality and image culture implicated by very form of anime — your citation of her referencing of Oshii and Miyazaki here don’t quite grasp the whole picture. When they speak of “de-Japanizing,” the issue at stake is a larger (and widely contested) discourse on the nationality (kokuseki) of anime and the form’s ability to efface it and produce a de-nationalized (mukokuseki) icon, which is in itself part of a larger discourse on globalization and postmodernity in anime scholarship. So yes, there is a “de-Japanizing tendency,” but non-Japanese (that is, non-ethnicized) does not equal “white.” It equals the effacement of ethnicity as such. “White” is still a racial/ethnic category.

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 9:27 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

DUH! Don’t you people get it? Us whities assume all Asians have yellow skin and squinty eyes. Since these characters don’t fit the common STEREOTYPE of what Asian and Asian characters look like, and since they’re so totally-cool-awesome!!!, they MUST be white.

Bleh, this is frustrating for me, and I’m white. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for people who identified with these characters and there ethnicity/background and are having them taken away because some casting director is hoping to find the next Zack Efron. BARF!

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 10:02 pm ¶
April wrote:

The cast seems a bit random for a M. Night film. Is this a straight to DVD film?

I am not familiar with the cartoon. However, if what the video show is correct then I don’t really see the logic in the all white cast. However, when has Hollywood ever used logic? I will wait to see how this develops. However, right now…I think I will skip this all together.

Now James Cameron is coming out with a film called Avatar…not certain if it is connected. That cast seems very diverse. Get that, a white guy promoting diversity in casting (hint, hint Shyamalan) I will give them my $14 (you have to watch Cameron in IMAX).

Posted 21 Jan 2009 at 11:32 pm ¶
Ada wrote:

What the heck, who said the character in Avatar are white?!! IMO they want them to be white. BTW I love this show, my little anime-nerd brother turned me onto it and now it is one of my faves.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 1:03 am ¶
Pheagan wrote:

LTP, that was a good link. I haven’t seen the show yet, have always meant to, but from what I understood the eyes were colored as they were to represent the tribe they were part of, so blue eyes are for water people.

Aaaaanyways, this pisses me right off as well, considering how poorly Asians are represented in Western cinema. What I’m wondering is, what is the response of the creators? I mean, really, where are they? They could really create a big controversy if they were against this, too, and considering how far they went to maintain the Asian influence… it also makes me wonder, is there any way for creators to safeguard their creations when it goes through a text translation? Like could they put a no-whitewashing clause in their contract when they sell the characters and stories?

Honestly, it would really be something to get a quote from the creators on this.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 1:48 am ¶
TierList E wrote:

Hollywood knows good and well those characters aren’t white- they simply just do not want to put in an asian-majority or leading cast, because they think (or want to think) that such a cast will turn off “if there weren’t for these so darn racist (but I’m certainly going to pander to anyway) audiences”, because money speaks louder than morals or social equality, especially if it also avoids an uncomfortable paradigm shift.

The only way this kind of thing will stop is if a consistent trend in audiences does hurt the paycheck eventually. It will take virtually forever to happen unaided, but if protesting people raise such a fuss it it turns just enough people and becomes just annoyi ng enough to not be worth anymore it this trend will become less common.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 3:09 am ¶
Ejunco wrote:

Great Video You know its gonna be a horrible movie with Shaymalan directing it. he only had three good films 6th sense, unbreakable and signs everything else was garbage it pisses me of when people say there is not asian and inuit culture i’ve only seen a couple of episodes and theres a big influence of inuit and asian .

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 3:15 am ¶
nm wrote:

I might even like to hear Caucasian actors emulate East Asian accents. It’s a change from hearing many of us emulate American accents.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 4:22 am ¶
somedude wrote:

I think the saddest thing about this is that M.Night only wanted to direct the film because his daughter wanted to dress up as Katara for halloween. (The darker girl with blue eyes, in case you don’t know)

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 6:28 am ¶
Pandora wrote:

I can’t remember where I read about it, but on Livejournal an Asian woman wrote about her seven-year-old nephew asking, with a quiver in his voice, whether this meant he couldn’t pretend to be one of the characters anymore. That just about broke my heart.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 2:22 pm ¶
Luis wrote:

At no point are Asian people considered a single race in Avatar. Each country is made up of one or more distinct racial/ethnic subgroups. Only the Water Tribes are Inuit/Yupik, the Fire Nation is predominantly Japanese (not completely), the Air Nomads were culturally Tibetan, though looked more like light-skinned Chinese, and the Earth Nation is a collection of distinct regions of Chinese and South Asian people. It’s fictionalized, so things don’t always match up, but it doesn’t represent everyone as a single people. The world is multiple continents with different nations that interact.

As for other arguments:

Yes, there are East Asians with skin as light as Europeans. There is a famous court case of a Chinese-American who argued he should have access to the same rights as Whites before Civil Rights. He was told that it wasn’t skin color, but other markers of race that excluded him.

If you think that their eyes are too big: you are racist. These are cartoons, and cartoons inspired by anime. I have pet peeves about a lot of markers of race in Japanese anime (hair color, features, etc.), so I’m not saying there aren’t problems. What I am saying is that Avatar characters’ eyes, despite being large and cartoonish, are given shapes that evoke their origin. Also, there are plenty of other features that are markers for race in the show, such as face shape, noses, body shape, hair texture, etc. Focusing only on eyes is a terrible and predictable habit of non-Asian Westerners when looking at racially Asian people. Get over it.

So stop trying to defend the White cast, and stop trying to willfully ignore what is going on in the show. It makes you look like an idiot.

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 2:27 pm ¶
Luis wrote:

As for eye color: eyes in Avatar correspond to bending elements. Thus:

Aang: hazel
Katara/Sokka: blue
Toph: green
Zuko: yellow

Yes, yellow. If you want to argue about eyes, there’s the end of the discussion. No one has naturally yellow eyes.

And as for big eyes, I looked over the screenshots of the show and most people have obviously almond shaped eyes. I think skeptics must have been expecting everyone to look like this: -_-

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 2:33 pm ¶
Titanis walleri wrote:

“Now James Cameron is coming out with a film called Avatar…not certain if it is connected.”
It’s not.

“is there any way for creators to safeguard their creations when it goes through a text translation?”
I doubt it, considering there are much worse adaptations than this one (even ones the creators are outspoken in disliking)…

Posted 22 Jan 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
UnseenUnheard wrote:

Many good points have been made but the squid guy has a point. All you need to do is pick up a book by Frantz Fannon on the effects of Colonialism to understand a little about how ones psychology is affected. I think there is a consensus on the issue of Avatar’s cast not being diverse enough (or more specifically, not having enough Asian cast members). Yet, the point that Squidy made was the depiction of characters and how the physical characteristics are decided. An analogy would be to look at how darker characters are portrayed. All too often the hero is shown wearing white, having blond hari and blue eyes, riding a white horse, etc, while the bad guy, or evil character, is depicted wearing black, can even be described as “dark” (”dark and stormy night”), will have black hair (Scar in the lion king), and has darker features in general (eyes, clothes, bla bla bla). This is a cultural construct folks. Not all cultures view, or viewed (there goes a little colonial legacy/impact for ya), darker as negative and lighter as positive.

Additionally, ideas of beauty have greatly been impacted. Japan is not free of such influence (especially Japan considering the past 120 years!!! Duh!!!). Honestly, many people have made important and interesting contributions i this discussion, but many are in denial and are simply reacting to Squid’s statements without considering the assertion. eh…

Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 11:58 am ¶
Rchoudh wrote:

@UnseenUnheard

I understand where you and mistersquid are coming from. How much impact Western notions of beauty have had upon Japanese animators is an ongoing debate. Even though I personally think Japanese animators for the most part like to be creative with their characters with little to no regard for race, I am sometimes thrown off guard when I see main anime characters looking stereotypically white with blond hair and big blue eyes (Sailor Moon, Naruto) but with Japanese ancestry. Also whenever Japanese animators have drawn characters of other races they usually make sure to apply racial markers sometimes to caricatural effects. Which does lead me to question how much racial notions of beauty really do impact upon some animators’ portrayals.

As for Avatar, like I said earlier, its creators are not necessarily following anime conventions. And they seem to have provided a specific reason for why their characters have light eyes as mentioned by Luis. So I think casting directors should have taken into that account (that just because the characters have light eyes there’s a specific reason for it and it’s not because they’re supposed to be white).

Anyway

Posted 23 Jan 2009 at 2:04 pm ¶
Kellen wrote:

I hate shyamalan! Who in their rite mind picked this lame of a director to make a movie based a great and most watched show! I’m tired of these producers or movie companies believing that if we can make a quick ass movie with tons of explosions and kick ass combat scenes its all good! No! i need a story! Shyamalan has made bad movies in the past except The Village! But its like picking a first time director to make Star Wars or Lord of the Rings! they need to start all over before Shymalan is going to be dissed and hated for at least 10-15 years and that’s if he continues to make more “Last airbender” movies! so stop!
And this whole race thing is a big issue also! I’m mean half the cast is white and Indian(no offense) Its like the white producers decided half the cast and Shamalyan became a racial favoritist and picked another set of the cast! I mean its like saying:

“Hey lets cast Denzel Washington as the lead role of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon!”

It duznt work!!!! Why don’t you just put Mr.Clean in and say, “That’s is our new Aang!” So i say that if Nickelodeon was smart it will shut down all the filming! Put more concentration on making a spin-off or movie of Avatar and answer all those unfinished questions they left off! Then once that shit is cared of then make the movie! But pick a different director with a great Film History! Such as

George Lucas
Steven Spielberg
Peter Jackson
The guy who made Pirates of the Caribbean
and etc!

Then have a cast for Asian/Asian-Americans only! Also if a Real and SMART Film Industry was smart of enough how to make a good movie and make tons of money they would actually want to do this movie! Because Nickelodeon is making MAD MONEY with this Franchise, imagine 3 movies!

That’s all i had to say! If any of you want to share your ideas or got some comments email me! And if you got hookups or connections to any film business or anything send my message to all those AVATAR believers!

Go TEAM AVATAR!!!!

Posted 30 May 2009 at 2:17 am ¶
CD wrote:

@mistersquid
“That video, with its propagandistic “Asian” flute soundtrack…”

Just FYI, that’s music directly from the show.

As far as the round-eye argument, several other commenters have responded to this better than I might’ve. I just wanted to add that, as an avid watcher of the show, I found that generally the young kids are made to look young by having wider eyes. Aang, Katara, and Toph, three of the main protagonists, are meant to be around the age of 12-13, and are probably the “best” examples of the characters with rounder eyes. All of the characters who are supposed to be 14+ progressively lose the wide-eyed look. Just an observation, for those who don’t know as much about the show.

Posted 25 Jun 2009 at 11:01 am ¶
momo wrote:

What burns me so much is that the creators of this show obviously went through a lot of trouble to research various Asian and indigenous cultures — the martial arts, the written languages, the costumes, the architecture, etc. And now when it comes time to cast the live action movie, they don’t see it fit to include even ONE person representative of the cultures they so happily plundered for their show? That’s just COLD. It’s as if Asian-ness is just set-dressing to them, just something that can be put on and taken off like a costume. Get a tan and put your fingers at the corners of your eyes and pull outwards, yeah, that’s good enough. And to people to claim that this is a make-believe world that needs not be peopled with Asians, I call bullshit. If you are going to such lengths to ‘authentically’ appropriate my culture, you had best include some of my people in its presentation. Anything else is just more yellowface.

Posted 25 Jun 2009 at 1:23 pm ¶
Semper Fi wrote:

In the TV show “Kung Fu,” Bruce Lee was actually suppose to play the main character but they chose David Caradine (white guy) instead, even though the main character was suppose to be Chinese.

The movie 21 was based on a true story. In real life all the characters are Asian but in the movie most of the characters are white.

Goku in the Dragonball movie was played by a white guy even though he’s Asian in the cartoon.

The Last Airbender movie…need I say more.

Over 90% of the time, Asian women are portrayed as whores, prostitutes, slut in Hollywood movies. Most of the time they are paired up with a white guy instead of an asian guy.

Asian guys are always portrayed as nerds, weak, unathletic, etc. when they play heroes they are always martial artists but for some reason still don’t get the girl.

Phenomenal documentary on Racism in Hollywood with evidence that it exists as well as its results on society, please watch:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9142171923095749295

Posted 27 Jun 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
Pure Logic wrote:

Pure Logic

Anime characters are pure fictional expression of culture. No one in real life can actually look 100 percent animated. Avatar is symbolism of Asian culture. Hence Asian culture equal Asian People. If the setting was similar to ancient knights era. It would be different.
Example:
No such thing as an Asian knight.
No such thing as an Western martial
art hero. In ancient times.

Avatar is Anti-Western, Anti-American Anti-Democracy, Anti-Western religion,
and Pro Asian Culture

Posted 16 Jul 2009 at 9:08 pm ¶
Pure Logic wrote:

Funniest Fact :Avatar The Last Air bender Is so anti-western religion. It kinda like watching a christian white Caucasian believing in Asian Religion screaming the F curse to Juese Christ. Sreaming Asian Pride! (Why can’t people just be themselves)

Posted 16 Jul 2009 at 9:23 pm ¶
I'm Tired of this wrote:

For anyone that will be going to see this film, ask youself this question – “When Hollywood start making more Asian films with white actors and for white audiences, where can the Asian Americans who are aspiring to make it in the show business go for inspiration?”

Posted 17 Jul 2009 at 3:31 am ¶
emmygreen wrote:

Yes, the film seems very disappointing so far. As a huge fan of this beautiful series that is a mix of different Asian cultures, it is distressing to see the western casting for main characters! People that haven’t seen the series may watch the film and get the wrong idea. I think filming should be canceled until they can get it right. Which should be reflected like Luis wrote about the different nations. Air benders are clearly Tibetan influenced, etc.
The actor for Aang is some kid from Texas!? They need to go to Tibet and cast a kid from there. But that would be so un hollywood….
Think I’ll just stick with the cartoon and when the film comes out I’ll try to meditate and block it out.

Posted 21 Oct 2009 at 2:17 pm ¶