"Airbender Fans" Webmaster Weighs in on Racebending

The conversation surrounding M. Night Shyamalan’s film adaptation of The Last Airbender is less about Sky Bisons and Fire Lords than a perception of racially insensitive casting. A rich discussion continues in the comments section of our exclusive interview with the director.

Earlier today I laid out the fundamental arguments from the group Racebending.com. I also had the good fortune to speak with Teddy Blass, the founder of LastAirbenderFans.com and we discussed the continuing controversy.

“It’s a legitimate concern,” Blass said, “but I find that the argument of intentional racism does not seem like the case. No one went in saying 'only white kids.’”

Of the commenters, on both UGO and his own site, Blass added, “There seems to be a lot of distrust of Shyamalan, but I take him at his word.”

This is in reference to Shyamalan’s decision to move the different ethnicities around as if on a “chess board” once he found actors he liked. Supposedly, there was a contender for Aang who was Asian (and 5 ft. 10 inches) and a Prince Zuko who was Ecuadorian. "Sure you could argue why these things didn’t work out," Blass says about the actors who were not picked. "I can only speculate."

Shyamalan did not mention any other contenders for the roles of Sokka and Katara, the brother and sister from the Water Tribe many believe to be representative of Inuit culture in the animated series.

“Maybe he only should have been looking for Asians, I don’t know, but I don’t think anyone said, 'This is a big movie – make sure your heroes are white.’”

I asked him about one image from the initial trailers that seems to be the most contentious, the one of a very Caucasian looking Katara and Sokka “leading” a tribe of Inuit background actors.

“That image does stand out – but as we learn more about the movie it may cancel a lot of these issues out. We haven’t seen any of the Asian or African-American actors from the Earth Kingdom yet, and all we’ve really seen are the white kids.”

While the controversy doesn’t seem to be going away, Blass tells me that the overwhelming majority of feedback he gets on his site is pro-Airbender. Even people who voice concerns about things like the image of Sokka and Katara are still anticipating the film.

We’ll continue to follow this story and plan to engage in further conversation with people from all sides of this issue.