Racism, Thor, and Avatar

In case you guys haven't heard, there's a bit of a stink over the new Thor movie coming out this spring.  One of the Norse Gods, Heimdall, is being played by British actor Idris Elba, who also happens to be black.  The Counsel of Conservative Christians, a hate group originating from Missouri is complaining about Marvel's "liberal bias" diluting the great European heritage of the Norse Gods with a black man, and have a facebook group advertising their boycott of the movie.  Read the full story here:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/12/16/racists-thor-idris-ebla-racism/

While these guys are clearly racists who are not thinking of the issue critically beyond the idea of "we don't want dem darkies ruining up the place" (I hesitated to use a racial slur even in the context of quoting the theoretical mind of a racist, but then again the real racist would probably use a worse word, starting with a N), let's look at this critically.  If you're the kind of geek who needs his movie to be completely accurate to the source material, then you might be in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with southern racists.  As the guys from Penny Arcade pointed out, "even a racist clock is right twice a day"

All credit goes to the Penny Arcade guys, of course.  

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/12/20/

Luckily though, I do not find myself in that uncomfortable position at all.  I've always felt that movies are supposed to and SHOULD take liberties with the original source material, to fit the format better.  Stories need to be adapted for the big screen for one, and for two the casting should be colorblind, especially in an already white-dominated Hollywood.  I for one was totally on board the "Donald Glover for the next Spider-Man" train, not because I thought that it would be great for a black man to play Spidey, but that it would be great for a funny man to play Spidey, especially after 3 movies with the dry and boring Tobey MacGuire.

But me being in this position puts me at odds with one of my past positions.  When the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie was cast, I was among the many mad at the casting choices.  The cartoon consisted of a fictional world whose characters were comprised of representations of various Asian races, and was possibly one of the few American shows to celebrate Asian culture in a non-condescending, gimmicky way.  Yet they cast all the lead good guy characters, and thus the rest of their respective nations, as white.  My heart bled for the Asian-American actors out there who were getting denied roles, especially after reading a heart-wrenching blog by an Asian-American who simply gave up his dreams of being an actor because he knew that all he would be able to get were supporting roles.  But wouldn't me siding against white actors in Avatar because it isn't accurate be completely contradicting me siding with black actors in the roles of white characters?  I thought so at first, but I think I feel better about my reasonings now.  My wife often points out that I often think in a philosophical black and white, not because I'm stupid, but because I think that is what is the most dignified and ideologically firm response to debates like this.  But now I think this is the first situation where I can see a middle ground that acts in accordance to reality without demeaning my ideological values.  I'm okay with siding for the accurate racial casting in the Avatar movie, not just because it's more accurate, but because there is CLEARLY some serious racism going on behind the casting of that movie.  I'm talking about this:

I didn't make this one actually, taken from ED or 4chan or something

Not only that, but the Earth Kingdom was the only one nation in the movie that was casted correctly, as a sort of Chinese-heavy racial blend.  However the people of the Earth Kingdom in the first movie are just background characters, villagers that need to be saved.  As the Asian-American blogger I previously mentioned predicted, the only Asians that would get roles would be for extras.  As usual.  So the final product was white people saving yellow people from brown people, in a story that was supposed to be a metaphor about the intricacies of the relationships between the various and diverse Asian countries in the real world.  This was not just colorblind type casting, like in Thor, but rather a dark reminder of the possibly subconscious yet still very real problem that Americans have with seeing Asians in leading roles.  So for once I have an adaptable opinion about something.

Although apparently I'll never side with the white actors.  Oh well, they don't need any more support