Anti "Yelloface" movment.

[-MET-]

Found this strangely on a guitar forum, and since it's related to the ATLA movie, I'd thought I'd post it here.
[BTW i'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this "yellowface" movement, I thought it would be interesting to show you, see what you think]

Basically, there's a group called Racebending who are complaining how all main cast of TLA are caucasian, etc. We've all heard this point of view several times.

Here's their homepage: http://www.racebending.com/v3/

Howevery they're taking it a step further by using examples from the past [eg, some dragonball movie used only white actors] and publicising the movement more, getting more support, etc. They seem to be people who are genuinely pissed off at this race issue

I suck at explaining what they're doing sso here are 3 videos that they posted, [last one is taken from a news channel report]:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AikjV6x0g4w&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUsssUaVGmw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEvfe-pS8wo&feature=player_embedded

I'm not really sure how I feel about this movement, and frankly I care less about it. But since this particular topic hasn't been raised up here, I thought I should bring it up.
Post your thoughts/reactions.

And here's the original thread I got this news from [all links are the same as the ones i've posted]:

Here's the main site and a vid of an documentary that's being showed at film festivals across the country.
http://www.racebending.com/v3/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aikj...player_embedded

Alright guys here's the deal.

Blackface and minstrel shows ended in the 50's. White people would try to to pretend to be or take on acting roles as black people.

However there is still the matter of YELLOWFACE. It seems as if the North American film industry believes that a movie cannot be successful if it is not Americanized.

The perfect example and almost the stepping stone of what is hopefully going to presently stop yellowface prominently is the new live action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender. If I were to summarize all the bullsh!t this film is going to try and pull I would go on an infinite rant so I'll just give some examples. All the protagonists in the film are Caucasian. There are a small group of people in the film who were actually cast as asians (in reality there were/are no caucasians in the actual series the movie is based off of). Coincidentally this group is given a minuscule role and very few, NONE of them I think even have character names, just "Person #4" and stuff to that nature. There is even a scene of the caucasian protaginist walking along a path to a temple and the entire asian group are basically throwing flowers to his feet and groveling to him. Not to mention the they just so happened to cast the villains in this movie as dark skinned people. So what we have here in the story are the villains, people of color, enslaving empires of white people and the white protaginists must eliminate the dark skinned people.

I'm bad at this so I'll aware all of you with some more vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUss...player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEvf...player_embedded

There are/have been a great many other things that are obvious Yellowface, some examples being:
The Dragonball live action movie (besides the fact that it actually sucked they had the pretty, skinny, white boy play Goku)
The planned Akira live action remake (Leonardo DiCaprio is producing and wants to play Kaneda, a Japanese character in an ALL japanese setting. He wants to change the setting from the original Neo-Tokyo to Neo-Manhattan)

Even back in the day Yellowface was prominent:
Kung Fu, the television series (a series originally planned to star Bruce Lee, scrapped that idea and had David Carradine star)

[Disasterpiece]

rabble rousers

[Tera253]

well yeah... everyone hates white people. didn'tcha know? *eye roll*

~Azula~

[Uncle Iroh]

This thing just never dies.

Couple nit-picks:

1. Americanized? I forget, this show was made for TV in America, by Americans, on a show which is not even set on this planet; how was it Americanized?

2. Dark-skinned = evil? Zuko and Iroh are not "evil," let alone the fire nation. Only the fire lord is actually a true villain (and azula later). Not to mention, once they cast Dev Patel as zuko they needed to make his relatives the same color/ethnicity, which in this case is Indian subcontinent peoples.

3. In case I forgot it before, this world is MADE UP. It is pretend people in a pretend setting and they are not of any specific earth race. They just happen to do things in an oriental-inspired setting, not actually in an oriental country. If this show took place in, say, China (which in case you missed the rest of this sentence it does not) then it would be yellowfacing.

[Disasterpiece]

I put these loons in the same place with conspiracy theorists and people who say green skittles make you horny.

[pinkypierce14]

Why can't people just enjoy watching movies? These days, people are only talking about the race, the enviromental factors, or whatever controversy they want to stir up. I say, watch the goddamned movie if you want and if you disagree with the movie, or dislike it, DO NOT WATCH IT.

[stolencinderella]

I agree with pinkypierce14. I don't know if any of ya'll are Harry Potter fans but I remember when the first movie came out. I was completely distraught about everything from the story to the casting. By the third movie I learned to look at the book and the movie as two separate pieces and I'm thinking that its the best thing to do in this situation too. I think that as long as the actors play the parts well it shouldn't matter what color they are. I have seen movies that were based on real people that cast actors of the wrong race.

Seriously race is not going to affect how good the movie is or isn't unless you let it. Thinking that someone in casting was being racist is narrow-minded and naive, enjoy the movie. If Dev Patel is as good a flawed villian as he was an innocent hero than I will be happy with his role as Zuko, and if that Texan boy playing Aang has a cute smile and BA moves then I will be content.

At this point all we can do is try see the bright side.


-stolencinderella

[sugar02]

i don't know... i personally don't care, but it would make more sense to use asains for anime films (most animes take place in japan anyway, so it would be kinda weird using americans and such) for avatar though it probably could go either way really.

[skyline]

They look Asian, they write and speak Chinese, they're eating Asian food, and they do things from Asian cultures. They should have at least some east Asian actors.

[tinyartist18]

It's fictional. In my opinion, the cultures will be expressed through the language styles, the art, the architecture, the ideals, etc.. The color skin of the actors shouldn't hold a regard over how the culture is perceived. The actors and the world that they act in are more important. In addition, M. Night Shamwow has a creative licence to do whatever the heck he wants with the film - if it's a representation that doesn't please a few people, I don't think it really matters.

[Air of the North]

I just hope that the movie is as good or better than i hope it will be.