My Second Home

I admit to having lived under a fannish rock for the two years or so. I haven't been writing fic, I haven't been reading outside my tried and true fandoms, and I have been actively avoiding all meta and kerfluffles. Life was just too stressful to stress over TV shows and movies. I just wanted to have fun.

Apparently, someone just doesn't want me - or more precisely, my Amerasian daughter and me - to have FUN.
I actually read my flist today- which is huge now and extremely eclectic since I locked this journal - and today I find this telling video and links to the controversy surrounding the casting of the movie version of Avatar the Last Airbender - an absolute never-miss favorite show for my self and my daughter.

This video covers the situation in what I think is a fair way:




Now, why do I feel like the casting of this film is aimed at me and my daughter definitely NOT having fun?

Well, let's be fair. It's not just my family that is being targeted. It's pretty much any family that is aware enough to try and provide real role models, myths, and entertainment for their Asian or Amerasian children.

Because, you see, my daughter loves the Avatar animated series.

She is going to want to go see the movie.

And I am going to have to tell my beautiful, black-haired, brown-eyed, golden-skinned, almond-eyed daughter, "NO."

The same way I had to refuse to only buy her the blonde, blue eyed Barbies when she said they were prettier. (We got every Princess of the World Barbie I could find from Asia and the Pacific, and she finally realized they were gorgeous, too.)

The same way I had to special order her first baby doll so that it would have Asian features and coloring.

The same way I had to eventually stop allowing her to watch the Suite Life of Zack and Cody because I didn't want her to spend that much time with a show where the ONE AND ONLY ASIAN GIRL ON THE ENTIRE SHOW was a complete air head concerned almost entirely with material gain.

I'm going to have to say no to the movie version of the Avatar, because when my daughter says, "I want to be Katara!" when she plays out scenes from the stories or makes up her own little fanfic role plays, as she often does, I do NOT want her to be thinking that she'd look more like Katara if she were WHITE.

I do not want this to be one more movie that makes her feel like her nose is the wrong shape (too wide) or hair the wrong color (too dark) or her eyes the wrong shape (too slant). I welcomed the Avatar animated series in part because it was an AMERICAN production that took pride in ASIAN culture. It seemed to me that it was as Amerasian as my daughter.

I cannot say the same thing about the movie.

We will boycott this movie, I urge you to consider doing the same.