Hey- Just wanted to say I totally agree with the confusion about Amanda Seyfried, when I first saw promos for Jennifer's Body I thought the same thing.

On a related note, so only me and my roomie would watch Teeth- two dudes. Our female friends would not come near the movie. Was this a common reaction?

[www.nbcphiladelphia.com]

More horrors from the racial casting for the live-action "Avatar the Last Airbender" film.

First, they cast all the lead roles with white actors; they even held the casting call in Texas. Worse...you know how, when they were casting Harry Potter, the casting call was national news? They only announced that they were even casting...AFTER they cast white actors.

***So now, on February 7th, in Shyamalan's hometown of Philadelphia, they're holding an open casting call for EXTRAS.

Okay, every film needs extras. but here's the thing: they openly called for non-white actors. Thus, they're not even going to be....consistent. They'll be at the Southern Water Tribe village and everyone EXCEPT the main characters won't be white; but the main characters will be white.

Here's how they ACTUALLY phrased it: " Near and Far Eastern, Middle Eastern, Asian, Mediterranean and Latino."

So wait....now they're just asking for "Brown people" as if they're all the same? I mean...Latino and Mediterranean? What, we're back to the 1960's where dark-skinned Italian people could "convincingly" play Chinese people?

And here's the worst part, though; notice their instructions for those that show up: "Dress casually or in the traditional garb of your ethnicity."

...what? "Traditional garb of your ethnicity"? That literally sounds like saying "hey, adorable looking foreign people, wear that foreign "garb" we think is really cute that we see on Disney rides around the world"

Okay maybe that's just semantics, but still: they bother to ask for "Asian people" (or "dark-skilled Brown People even Latino or Italian who aren't quite as Anglo-Saxon as the people we cast in all the lead roles)...and they bothered to say "hey dress in traditional clothing because the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation are a mix of Chinese and Japanese, resepectively"

Further, ms Newitz, have you HEARD what the guy they cast as Sokka said? he literally said, in response to fan complaints about the racial casting, that he will be able to get by if he *gets a tan* and *hopes that the audience's Willing Suspension of Disbelief is at play.

Let me dig up a link: [www.mtv.com] ""I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan," he said of the transformation he'll go through to look more like Sokka. "It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."

yikes

On top of that, Ms Newitz....although this isn't as big as the racial casting, it's obviously one of those "the studio doesn't respect the source material" things; for starters, Sokka is *15 years old*, and they cast a 24 year old to play him; why? well, my guess is because Rathbone was a secondary character in "Twilight"; Zuko, who is 16 years old, was also cast with a 25 year old hearthrob literally from "High School Musical 3". I think they sold out and cast people not on their ability but on casting "big names" who might hook people.

The problem with this isn't so much that they aged the cast 10 years....as they did not *consistently* age the cast 10 years: the main character, Aang, is still played by a 12 year old, as is main female character Katara (Sokka's sister).

The problem is that there's a love triangle between Aang/Katara, and Katara/Zuko in the TV show; now Zuko is over 10 years older than Katara.

I mean this is a show for children, starring children, and they cast a bunch of adults.

****What would have been the reaction if they said "Ron Weasley is played by a 20 year old actor, but we're still casting a 10 year old for Hermione?" It makes no sense.

And they didn't even bother to defend the racial casting controversy! they don't even talk about it in interviews or gave us a token explanation (Peter Jackson at least had an explanation for why he used Arwen more; and while I disagreed, he at least acknowledge that some people had a problem with it but defended his points)

the most damning thing is that Shyamalan is himself South Asian, and when I started hearing news about this that actually made me think "oh, so there's more chance he'll use non-white actors".

And the only half-hearted defense these guys can come up with is "but the white actors we chose are so talented!"....it doesn't MATTER how talented they are! They might be the next Dakota Fanning or Anna Paquin! I don't care! It's like doing a production of "Raisin in the Sun" with all white actors, then earnestly being *defensive* about that choice!

(sigh)

This is going to be a disaster. I'm not spending money on this; I introduced my half-Korean nephew who is 5 years old to this show, to show him all of the asian culture stuff (he's only just starting to understand how people are different; I also showed him my old VHS of "Big Bird in China"; he was pretty excited). ***How am I going to explain this to him? I DO NOT know how I'm going to explain why the main characters are white to him.

"Get a tan", "pull my hair back and squint", "willing suspension of disbelief"?!?!?

and the entire point of the show was understanding how different peoples are all the same fundamentally and our differences make us stronger, etc. that kind of thing.

So they're holding an open casting call for extras in Philly on February 7th, asking for "Asians, or Brown People, just as good" and "dress in adorable ethnic garb!"

***People should go, just to protest.

What's worse is all of the other racial casting: DragonBall Evolution is just a fiasco, only made because of the writers' strike, so lets not even touch that.

Cowboy Bebop cast Keanu Reeves but....CB is set in space; it's in the future. I don't think they ever definitively say "Spike Spiegel is Asian" (and with a name like "Spiegel"...) but while some people are annoyed that Reeves was cast, I think it wasn't fundamentally because he is white. But Last Airbender *IS* set in an all-Asian world. The series creators have said point-blank "there are no Caucasians in the world of Avatar" (I'm also fairly sure they said there weren't Africans either)

And let's contrast this: the live-action Evangelion movie project by Weta Workshop is in development hell, but they had a similar racial casting debate a while ago; Richard Taylor himself said that because something like HALF of the global audience will be in Japan (where it is very popular), they need to cast Asians for it to succeed internationally. Because Evangelion is actually set IN Japan, explicitly.

(sigh)

This extras thing was rubbing salt into a wound; first, why care whether the extras are Asian if you didn't cast Asian lead actors? Second, won't it be....anachronistic, to have this small village at the South Pole with lots of asian people and TWO kids who are white?

Remember Chasing Amy: "They're trying to tell us that we want to be white!"
"well, don't you?"
[whips out a gun and shoots him] "Black Rage! Black Rage!"

****Ms Newitz, this isn't just "racial casting to optimize ticket sales". I call this Gentrification!

OH SWEET HOLY FRAK! I thought you were kidding. That's an actual star!! ME AM NO WORTHY, NO AM WURRRTHY!! Umm, but don't take it away.

Thank you for the birthday "star"!
Much wuv to you and the whole io9 crew. I'll show you my birthday tattoo at the next Writer's w/ Drinks. It's a hoot!

Sometime I'll tell you the story of how I quoted "The Wizard of Oz" during oral argument - and won!

[farm4.static.flickr.com]

Interesting upcoming Nicolas Cage movie:

[www.apple.com]

Think 23 with the end of the world.

Hey Annalee,

AintItCoolNews... just posted on Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince being bumped to next July.

No November of 08 release now.

hey, where did you get that picture for you gendercide post?
just wondering...

Just a heads up. This would make excellent material for IO9.
[dsc.discovery.com]

Sorry if this is a double post...but I just wanted to say I was pleasantly surprised to see you cited in the USA Today article on Del Toro. Glad to see that the mainstream press knows where to get its info!