Alright, so apparently Paramount has recast the role of Zuko. Instead of Jesse McCartney, we have Dev Patel, the young man who played the lead role in the recent hit, Slumdog Millionaire. (A movie I have not seen but sort of want to, since everyone I know except one person loved it.)
So...um...good things about that: Patel over McCartney ANY day. Apparently he knows tae kwon do. This is a good thing.
Bad things about that: Zuko is pretty clearly from a Chinese-based culture, not an Indian-based culture, so we still have bad casting. It could very well end up being a token PoC role. Having a group of white kids save the world from a bunch of dark-skinned evil people is never a nice thing to watch in the movies. And, of course, the scary thought that M Night Shyamalan might end up casting himself as Iroh, which would be...there are no words.
So yeah, still not great. I think I might join the letter-writing campaign once I have two brain cells to rub together again. I want to be able to write an eloquent letter, not brainless blog babble.
I just hope that if they make the Fire Nation all Asian Indian, they alter the culture so that it is more Indian and less Chinese so it would look less blatant. I also hope that if they're doing "visual contrast" (sigh, my late night idea from last week looks so distasteful now), they at least make the Earth Kingdom Chinese. I mean, if they're not going to make the Water Tribe INUIT (or at least DARK SKINNED like they're supposed to be - and I'm not going to even bother mentioning the Air Nomads), they should at least make one group of Avatar people get the right bunch of actors. Here's to hoping some little Chinese-American girl can snag the part of Toph in the next movie so at least ONE of the not-formerly-evil heroes can look the way they're supposed to.
And I'd just like to say...Dev Patel would be a pretty good Sokka. He's got the ears.
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