Why Paramount Pictures won't get my money.

You probably have already gotten a good picture about what I mean...

In the summer of 2008, as my husband and I were preparing for our move to Japan, we found this TV show called 'Avatar The Last Airbender' I remember hearing that the show was amazing, despite being a cartoon, originally geared toward children on the Nickelodeon station. By the time I saw it, the show had completed its run, so after returning to America in 2009, my husband and I rented the DVDs and immensely enjoyed the story Avatar told.
My interpretation of the show-
A boy name Aang from a Buddhist temple in some place like Nepal is chosen to be the next Avatar. He is the one person who is able to learn the ancient art of ‘bending’ of each of the four countries or cultures of the story’s world. The four nations each had the ability to ‘bend’ one of the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. It was clear to me from the beginning that the all the nations were representation of Asian cultures, except Water, which represented the Inuit people or Eskimos. Fire nation is clearly Chinese, Earth is Korea, Air is Nepal. Each nation had warriors gifted in the use of ‘bending’ and used martial arts, clearly another culturally Asian practice. The people in the world of the TV show all read Chinese characters as well, completing the 100% Asian vibe of the show.

When I heard about Paramount Pictures making a motion picture of the TV show I loved I was ecstatic and immediately ran to learn who would play the roles of the characters I had loved on the show. I quickly came to realize that I could not watch this clearly racist movie. You heard me right, RACIST. I learned that all of the main characters, were to be played by white people. Even worse, at one point the main ‘villain’ of the show would be played by Jesse McCarthy…blond haired blue eyes pop singer, far from the Chinese Zuko of the show. When Jesse McCarthy was able to make the shooting dates as a result of tour date conflicts, the role of the villain Zuko was given to Dev Patel of Indian ancestry. That’s right, now all the good guys were white people, NOT Asian as in the popular TV show, but also the main villain, and now in fact the entire ‘bad’ nation are the only people of color in the film. This is just horrible. Are American and international audiences unable to accept Asian actors as hero’s and main character? I don’t believe this to be true, but I believe that Paramount Pictures thinks that casting white actors would be best.

Though I really wanted to watch this movie, I can not bear to support this company's racist actions by paying to see this film. I see this movie as teaching Americans a number of wrong messages. The TV show had it all right, the movie has it all wrong, and it is a true shame.


I soon found an organization that is protesting The Last Airbender movie and hopes to show Paramount Pictures that what they have done is indeed wrong. I hope other people will choose not to support this movie as I, and those at www.racebending.com, have.

Racebending Binder