Hollywood Keeps Making Me Repeat Myself

Art by Gene Luen Yang

Lotta folks linking today to Gene Luen Yang’s comic calling for a boycott of the upcoming film The Last Airbender. Can’t say I disagree with him. To cast white actors in a film version of a story rooted quite deeply in Asian culture seems silly at best. If it were just “colorblind” casting across the board, I’d be far less bothered by it. The fact that all the heroes (implicitly Asian or Inuit in the original cartoon) have been turned into wholesome American-looking White People while the primary villains are played by Brown People (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire, Cliff Curtis, a Maori actor best known for his role in Whale Rider, and Shaun Toub, who has been playing Generic Ethnic Personages in Hollywood for years) is just bizarre and troubling.

I suspect that some of it stems from Studio Suits declaring that “Americans” won’t go see a Summer tentpole (potential franchise) movie if the hero is played by a non-white person unless his name rhymes with Schmill Schmith.* I suspect it was the same force that led to the casting of that movie star whose name and face are the first things that come to mind when you think of Persia and Persian people, Jake Gyllenhaal, in this week’s Prince of Persia.

*Or, perhaps, in the case of the upcoming awful-looking Karate Kid remake, the potentially-marketable son of someone whose name rhymes with Schmill Schmith.

And all that is a perfectly good reason to stay away from this movie. But there’s something else, too.

And that comes back to the question I’ve asked about so many things over the years…why does Avatar: The Last Airbender need to be a movie at all?

For those who don’t know, Avatar was an animated series that ran on Nickelodeon for three seasons from 2005 to 2008. It was, as the title might lead you to believe, about the last Airbender in a world where rival factions of Waterbenders, Earthbenders and Firebenders vie for dominance (or, more accurately, the Firebenders vie for dominance while the other groups generally say, “Yo, fire dudes, why you gotta be such dicks all the time?”). And it. Was. Awesome. Stylishly designed, full of great characters, a fun story and some of the most kickass action scenes ever animated for American television.

And now, for some reason, I guess it needs to be a movie. Because adults won’t watch cartoons, I guess? Hey, nobody tell the people who go see the movie that in spite of the presence of live actors, all the fight scenes and air-, water-, earth- and fire-bending stuff and flying bison and fantastic scenery means that the ostensibly “live action” movie is more or less a very expensive cartoon.

But, I guess it’s gotta be a movie. Followed by at least one, and more likely two, sequels more than they have any material, real ideas or creative energy for. If everything flows smoothly, according to my best reading of the Hollywood Official Creative Bankruptcy Act of 1988, we’re on track for a Last Airbender Broadway musical no later than 2021, followed by the 2025 film adaptation of Airbender!: The Musical.

But I digress. My real point is that the material is goddamned brilliant as an animated TV series. And part of the reason for that is that it’s endlessly easy to suspend one’s disbelief when you’re looking at animation. It’s so, so much easier to let a certain level of unreality slide when you’re looking at animation, whether you’re talking about a cat who can survive falling anvils and exploding dynamite or an Airbender and a Firebender engaged in super-powered battle.

Here, take a look at this:

On the left are the movie’s Aang and Sokka, and on the right are the cartoon originals. Compare the two top images. On the left is a simplified face – simple shapes and angular lines. And I think that’s really it – the angularity suggests a certain aggression, the impulsiveness and ability to be a badass warrior when called upon that are the hallmarks of Aang’s character. On the right is a chubby-cheeked, round-faced lad who looks like we could almost but not quite buy him solemnly telling Keanu Reeves that there is no spoon. And the movie’s Sokka…well, he looks like he ought to be hanging out with his friends outside the Circle-K, practicing skateboard tricks and asking passing adults to buy him a pack of cigarettes.

Great special effects are no guarantee that what looks amazing in animated format will translate to live action. There’s a certain thrill to seeing something like The Lord of the Rings or Spider-Man adapted to the cinema, because you’re seeing life and motion where before they didn’t exist. But  The Last Airbender already exists as a motion picture. This story is already available in a medium to which it is perfectly suited. So, really, why does it need to be a big-screen movie? I don’t like the casting and it’s just one more reason not to see the movie. But more than anything it is the movie’s very inessential nature that makes it not worth seeing.