How M. Night Shyamalan and Paramount Ruined My Summer

I've written before about the controversy surrounding "The Last Airbender," which will be released in theaters in less than two weeks now. I tried to be impersonal, refraining from snark and bitter fangirl histrionics. But revisiting the subject now, my resolve to stay out of the argument is eroding fast. Because the "Airbender" controversy is very personal to me, and the actions of the creative talent behind the films have upset me greatly. People are sick of hearing about the accusations of discriminatory casting that have emerged, and I'm sick of talking about it. But I know that it's vital to keep bringing it up, again and again if necessary, because if I don't who will? If I don't say that this is wrong, put it into words and put it out there, I certainly can't expect anyone else to.

I'm Chinese-American, have lived in the U.S. all my life, and I'm about as assimilated into Western culture as it's possible to be. I have always thought of myself as an American, and was fortunate enough to grow up with a big West Coast Asian-American community that kept me from ever feeling alienated or isolated because of my ethnicity. In fact it took me much longer than it should have to realize that this was not the norm in most parts of the country, and for many Americans someone of Asian extraction is immediately assumed to be a foreigner or a recent arrival from the Far East. The American media has reflected this for a long time, happy to trot out the Korean convenience store manager, the Japanese tourist, and the wizened old Chinese restauranteur for bit parts, but not so comfortable letting them be leading men or women.

When I was younger, I made excuses for Hollywood. I knew the Asian population in the US wasn't very large, and I thought the ignorance was unfortunate but understandable. Sure, we were the bad guys more often than not, but occasionally there was a "Karate Kid" or a "Goonies," even if the Asian characters always had to speak with funny accents. As I got older, I thought that things were getting better. Asian-American themed media offerings were still few and far between, but at least we were getting better ones like "Joy Luck Club" and "Better Luck Tomorrow." I took it as a good sign that there were more improvements to come. But those grating old stereotypes never seemed to go away. And after a brief boom in Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies about ten years ago, Asians in the movies have largely gone back to one or two small niche pictures a year - prestige pics and cheaply made comedies - while otherwise filling out the background roles in major commercial films.

I'll make a quick digression about television, which has done a much better job of putting Asian leads in the forefront recently. "Heroes" with Masi Oka and Sendhil Ramamurthy, "FlashForward" with John Cho, and "Lost" with Naveen Andrews, Daniel Dae Kim, and Yunjin Kim recently went off the air, but we've still got Tim Kang, B.D. Wong, Ming Na, Margaret Cho, and Sandra Oh on the air representing East Asians, while South Asians have been seeing a bumper crop of roles lately, as chronicled in this recent Slate article, making stars of Aziz Ansari, Mindy Kaling, Danny Pudi, Kunal Nayyar, and hopefully many more to come in the fall. TV's generally more representative and socially conscious all around, though there are still plenty of issues which need to be addressed that I'll leave for another time.

The movies are another matter entirely. The current glut of giant CGI-heavy blockbusters all seem to follow the same formula of an everyman hero going the distance to save the world, and that hero is almost always a Caucasian male unless he's Will Smith, Denzel Washington, or a cartoon character. With so much money going into some of these pictures, the studios are far more risk averse and seem eternally terrified that there's some miniscule chance that the black or brown or yellow heroes won't play in the midwest or the South, never mind that we've all gotten used to seeing them on our television screens. The result is a cinemascape that feels decades behind the reality of US demographics, where over a third of the population is non-Caucasian.

And so we come to "The Last Airbender," which is such a perfect vehicle for young Asian and Native American actors, such a great chance to see a little more multi-ethnicity at the movies. The film is an adaptation of a 2005 Nickelodeon cartoon, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," that built its fantasy world on East-Asian and and Inuit cultures, and featured characters to match. I didn't expect the cast that would be fully Asian and Native American, but like so many others I could only gape in disbelief when I discovered that all of the lead roles were initially filled with Caucasian actors, mostly unknowns and minor television tween stars. It seemed like a horrible joke. The film would retain the Asian and Arctic settings, and keep many of the cultural elements like the character names, martial arts, costumes, and mythological underpinnings, but whitewash all the ethnic heroes out of existence.

I can't begin to convey how maddening this is. "Airbender" isn't some obscure Asian import that is having its premise Americanized for the big screen like so many recent Japanese horror flicks, but a fantasy property that was conceived by its American creators to showcase Asian and Inuit culture, that already has a substantial American audience that is familiar with the ethnically diverse characters through the cartoon, and was always sold by Nickelodeon as an Asian-themed story. But now that it's being translated to the big screen, suddenly the carefully researched, authentic cultural elements of the cartoon are being scrubbed out, to be replaced with generic Oriental exoticism. Now the characters are being described as racially ambiguous with more marketing emphasis on "diversity," to justify having Caucasian heroes with the ethnic actors limited to villains and background color.

Oh yes, there are Asians in "Airbender" now. After the backlash over the initial casting choices, South Asian British actor Dev Patel, fresh off the "Slumdog Millionaire" Oscar victory, was tapped to play the lead villain of the film, replacing Caucasian pop singer Jesse McCartney. Several other South Asian and Middle-Eastern actors, all conspicuously darker-skinned, are joining him as supporting villians - Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, and New Zealander Cliff Curtis. There are no East Asians or Native American actors that I can identify in the mix, except for those playing such vital roles as "Earthbending Boy" and "Old Man in Temple." It's enough to make one long for the days of Short Round and Mr. Miyagi. Speaking of which, the only summer film to conspicuously feature ethnic leads this year is the "Karate Kid" remake with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Having no Caucasian leads certainly doesn't seem to have hurt that film's box office performance.

Probably the worst blow is that the director of "The Last Airbender" is M. Night Shyamalan, one of the most prominent Asian-American directors we have. And frankly, he should know better. He's said in interviews that his own children watched the show, and as an Asian-American he should be aware of the dearth of minority heroes at the multiplex. Instead, he's been giving us the studio line about more diversity and ethnically ambiguous characters in his interviews. If "Airbender" is his idea of diversity, I think we're in serious trouble. If an Asian-American director could take a property that was so obviously meant give the spotlight to underrepresented minorities, and twist its good intentions into something as insensitive and ugly as this, I can't simply stand back and let it happen without complaint. This is my culture and heritage they're messing with. It's people like me being displaced and disappeared from the story. It's unfair, it's wrong, and it's been going on for far, far too long.

So please boycott "The Last Airbender." But look up the cartoon, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," if you haven't seen it yet. It's a great show that doesn't deserve to be associated with Paramount's unfortunate cinematic travesty.