A Chatterbox

Recently, an announcement came out regarding the casting for the “The Last Airbender” movie, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and based on the cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender“. You can find the post with the announcement and pictures of the proposed actors here.

Now, even if you don’t know much about the show or were unaware that it was heavily influenced by a variety of Asian cultures, you could at least pick up on the fact that while the drawn pictures of the sister and brother pair, Katara and Sokka, show them as being brown skinned, the actors picked for them are very, very white.

Skim the comments and you’ll notice that quite a few fans of the series are furious over the casting. “Not even one Asian main actor in a film based on Asian culture? Are you insane?” they cry, “For love the of god, at least pick someone with the right skin tone!” To them, the racism in M. Night’s choices is apparent and appalling.

But, inevitably, mixed in with the protests are the justifications. “It’s not about what race they are, it’s how well they act,” those on the other side insist, “You’re ones making it racist by insisting they pick actors based on skin tone and not on talent. It’s a show for all kids to enjoy, so what does it matter what race they are anyway?”

For them, race is such an unrelated issue that it shouldn’t even be brought up in context. “Avatar” is a fantasy world, so whether or not it’s based on real Asian cultures is irrelevant, by their view, in determining which actors are cast. It should be “colorblind”, which is a nice seeming word that doesn’t look as nice in practice as it does on paper. Many of them go so far as take the moral high-ground of “well, we’re just going to watch the movie and judge them on their acting and talent, while you lot are still off judging people on their race.” It’s unfortunate that they’re taking the moral high ground for the sake of a industry that’s already in the racial sewers.

But lets look at the concept of hiring based on “talent” instead of “look” or ethnicity and why it doesn’t work — and that even if it did, Hollywood isn’t doing it that way regardless.

Talent vs. Race

I’m going to need an example to explore this, so lets take the character Sokka.

So the people doing the casting sent out an open casting call (they didn’t, but work with me here) and the only two people who show up for auditions are Jackson Rathbone and an Inuit teenager with no acting history we’re going to call Kakortok.

We’re going to say that except for his eyes, which are probably brown, if you put Kakortok’s hair into a pony-tail, he’s a dead ringer for Sokka. His acting skills are so-so; he’s got decent comedic timing, he mumbles most of his lines and his movements and expressions are stiff. There’s some potential there, but Oscar worthy he is not.

Jackson on the other hand, is a fantastic actor (Note: I know crap about his acting skills, but for the sake this argument, we’re going to assume he’s the next Anthony Hopkins.) He comes into the audition and he’s got Sokka’s mannerisms, comedic timing, and facial expressions down pat. He can do a near perfect impression of Sokka’s voice actor, so he even sounds right. Moreover, he’s got experience and unlike Kakortok, he knows what he’s doing on a set. The casting director is blown away, “he’s the embodiment of Sokka, if Sokka were white!”

So at the end of auditions, the casting director sits down and talks with the producers and other directors — and at the end of the debate, they decide to hire Kakortok instead. Because he’s the right look and ethnicity for an Inuit-inspired character. Sorry, Mr. Whitey, no role for you.

For a lot of people, this is the quintessential “Affirmative Action” scenario. Reverse Racism in all it’s glory. Some talented, capable white kid looses out on a job because of a bunch of bleeding heart liberals are too concerned with racial diversity and being “fair” and give the position to a less talented (aka: less deserving) minority kid instead.

Is it racist to hire someone based entirely on their race and not their skills? Of course it is. But my example above also isn’t the full story. If you only pay attention to that simple “black-and-white” part of it, you’re accepting a half-truth.

Because here’s what you got to ask yourself:
Do you honestly believe that Jackson Rathbone would never be able to find another role?

He’s the next Anthony Hopkins! Okay well, even if he isn’t for real, he has recently acted in the block buster movie “Twilight” and held TV positions before that. He’s also attractive and popular with the teenage/twenty something crowd. He’s building himself a name. If he got turned down for this role, there’s a high chance he’d already have three more lined up. Granted it’s not certain, as the film industry is fickle, but he’s got a better chance than the no-experience Kakortok.

We all talk in terms of minority based hiring “costing” white people a job and we talk like that was the only possible job available to them. It isn’t. They’re already ahead of the game compared to many minority groups, because the playing field isn’t equal.

Now, I don’t want to talk down about the reality of poverty stricken or poorly educated Caucasians — because I grew up that way — and I don’t want to talk like there aren’t individuals of color who hold powerful, well-paid positions or are highly educated. Or make it sound like the “word of the law” on equality isn’t being violated here. But as an attractive white woman who was given the opportunity to “prove myself” in a job well beyond my educational and experience levels, do I feel that a minority woman of my same background would have been given the same chance? Hell no.

The spirit of equality is that a minority actor should get the role of minority-inspired character even if it means passing over a more talented white actor. Because the white actor still has more chances elsewhere.

But lets go back to the talent vs. ethnicity deal.

Learned vs. Born that Way

Whether or not acting talent is in-born is debatable. I’d say acting is like any other art form; 1% talent, 99% effort. Some actors fall out of the womb being able to act, other have to study and practice and work their asses off to get it right.

You can’t make Jackson Rotheborne not white. But you could teach good old Kakortok to act.

Now let step back from our fantasy example. The casting director, allegedly, didn’t do open casting for Sokka, which means they scouted or sent out offers to actors or potential actors directly. (Think of how Daniel Radcliffe was found because he sat next to the casting director in a theater.) We don’t know exactly how they went about it. Maybe they saw “Twilight” and decided that they loved Jackson for the role of Sokka. Which would mean that from the onset, not a single ethnic actor who actually resembles Sokkka was given a chance to prove their acting skills or prove they have the potential to learn.

Maybe they did send out offers to dozens of young male actors across the racial board — and only Jackson turned out to have the right skills for it. I admit, I have a hard time not calling bullshit on this. Of all the Asian (East and Southeast), Native American, and Latino young men out there in the world, this white kid really was the best actor out of all of them?

I mention Daniel Radcliffe above. Lets harp more on the Harry Potter thing. J.K. Rowling required that only British actors get hired for Harry Potter, which is something I will always love her for. There had to have been better British child actors out there more talented than Daniel Radcliffe. It’s not statistically possible that he, with his stiffness and limited range of expression in the first movie, was the best that Great Briton had to offer.

But Daniel Radcliffe is Harry Potter. We knew it from the first cast photos and we were dead certain by the time the movie posters came out. This had nothing to do with his acting and everything to do with his look. The same is true for Rupert Grint as Ron Weasly (who actually could act). Casting according to appearance isn’t always a bad thing.

Do you look at Jackson Rotheborne and say “yes, THAT’S Sokka!” If you do, you’re one of the few.

It’s not your place to judge…no seriously, someone else already has.

It is good of people when they decide to withhold their judgment and not look negatively on the actors because of their race. This is important, because the actors aren’t to blame. They’re undoubtedly good, hardworking kids who’ve put a lot of effort into getting these roles and are probably very excited to have them. They’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.

When people talk about “judge based on acting, not on race” they are talking about judging the actors. They trust that the studio made good choices in terms of acting (or will suffer the consequences of low box office sales, in theory) and were fair.

People who are against the casting picks aren’t judging the actors, they’re judging the people doing the casting.

We don’t trust that the studios are hiring based on acting skills. Which is a reasonable judgment, considering that the open casting call for Aang specifically said they were looking for young men between 12-15 of “Caucasian and any other ethnic descent”. It’s really not that much of a stretch to believe that they went looking for Sokka and Katara actors of Caucasian decent first and didn’t even look too hard at non-whites. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is hiring according to race.

(And for anyone gearing up to type “oh so it’s okay for them to hire according to the ASIAN race, just not WHITE race, uh huh, hypocrite, who’s the racist now?”, be aware I may copy/paste sections of this article in response to you, since I’m not sure you’ve been reading it.)

When you judge the actors based on acting, you’re assuming that the studio, director, casting director, producers, and everyone else involved, already did their bit for Equal Opportunity. You’re assuming — and accepting as fact — that the people doing the casting gave equal chances to actors of all races to prove their capabilities.

Because that’s what hiring based on skills really means. Everyone gets a chance to try out and prove themselves. It doesn’t mean picking a handsome white actor from a popular movie to play a tan-skinned role or asking for white people and the faceless, homogeneous mass of “any other” race to send you audition tapes. Whether or not movie goers are racist in judging actors doesn’t change whether or not the studios used racist hiring practices.

When we defend a studio’s choice of actor based on us not being racially against that actor, we’re putting our moral high ground on their moral sinkhole.