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So the Avatar movie hit the big screen and I had the chance to watch it. The whole hoopla over the “racebending” of the characters can be tracked over at angryasianman – virtually every other post. I think the critique is legit – and I’ll take it from a religious P.O.V (being a blog on race, place AND faith). One thing is for sure; this may be the most ethnically diverse movie ever made – as M. Night alludes – if all we are considering are extras. As far as the primary casting is concerned – the protagonists and the heros / heroines of the  story – it’s old hat. Last Samurai kind of stuff. And from a religious angle, the continued co-opting of foreign religions – a kind of cultural imperialism – is something that has irked me about Western revisions of Eastern religions for a long time. As if the latest reincarnation of an ancient Eastern religion were anything but. In my travels nearby Tibet I’ve listened with fascination to the lore of reincarnations of “the Chosen One.” But the ongoing question around here is why messiah-figures so often have to be depicted as white. I’m not just on to Hollywood casting. I don’t care, they can cast whoever they want. They have no prerogative to diversify and it only becomes an exercise in political correctness anyway. The question is, why we as a society continually hunger for saviors of a lighter hue.

If you ask me, the Airbender should have looked something more like this:

That’s my boy. The true Avatar.

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