Gutierrez 1 Justher Gutierrez COMM 163-01 Hung 15 May 2012 Aang Can Save Us All: Whitewashing in M.

Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender 1. Introduction During the summer of 2010, M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender opened in movie theaters across the world. Based on the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which aired from 2005-2008 on the network, the live-action adaptation was met with a sizable amount of fan outcry, largely due to the fact that Shyamalan had casted white actors into the hero roles. For my honors contract, I am focusing on the implications of the whitewashed hero roles of M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender while exploring the various reasons why the lack of Asian American actors in the primary hero roles in the film is problematic. During the semester, our class discussed the ways in which Asian Americans have been portrayed in Hollywood film. Many of the roles and characters for Asian Americans in Hollywood film are often in line with the idea of the yellow peril, a term defined by Seo et al. as an invasion of faceless and destructive Asiatics who would eventually take over the nation and wreak social and economic havoc (635-6). The idea of the yellow peril, along with various tropes such as the perpetual foreigner and the dragon lady, positions Asian American actors as the other. These portrayals are still present today, as most movie-goers are no strangers to the racial stereotyping and othering that occurs in Hollywood film. As a result, much has been written about films ability to perpetuate racism through these stereotypical portrayals. In On Visual Media Racism: Asians in the American Motion Pictures, Eugene Wong writes, the American motion picture industry acts as a conditioning process whose depiction of minorities, and their interpersonal relations with the majority, is a reinforcing agent of major consequence

Gutierrez 2 (10). Thus, Hollywood film has the power to influence the way in which movie-goers view minorities principally through their interactions with the majority, meaning whites. In many cases, Asian American representation in Hollywood film works mainly to further stereotypes, such as that of Fu Manchu or Charlie Chan. Because of these stereotypes, it becomes difficult for Asian Americans to be seen in the hero roles, as evidenced in M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender. The lack of Asian American representation within the hero roles becomes even more complex given many viewers relationship with the animated series. 2. Animated Series Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) was an American cartoon series that aired for three seasons, from 2005-2008, on Nickelodeon. The series was created by two white males, Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino. On the DVD featurette entitled Origins of the Avatar, Konietzko explains that both he and DiMartino were really interested in elements of Asian culture, as they were really into kung fu [and] practiced yoga. However, while this statement appears to showcase only a superficial understanding of Asian culture, Konietzko and DiMartino were lauded by fans for their cultural sensitivity toward Inuit and various Asian cultures from which themes of the series are based upon. Guy Aoki, the Founding President of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), a watchdog organization that monitors the portrayal of Asian Americans in the media, writes in a letter to Paramount pictures: Compared to other shows, including many anime imports, Avatar: The Last Airbender was unique because it was created for an American audience yet used Asian faces for its main characters. We appreciated that the Nickelodeon series (with the help of Asian American consultants) was intelligent enough to avoid

Gutierrez 3 using many of the common Asian stereotypesboth positive and negative--often seen in the media, and that it even made strides in casting Asian American voice talent. It is understandable that MANAA sees the animated series in a favorable light, given the fact that Edwin Zane, a former Vice President for MANAA, had served as the cultural consultant for the first two seasons of the series, which helped the producers avoid ethnic missteps (Aoki). Thus, with Konietzko and DiMartinos sensitive blending of cultural elements, the series was able to gain a sizable following in the three seasons it aired on Nickelodeon. In the fictional world of the Avatar, there are four nations that all correspond with four different elements: fire, earth, water, and air. In each nation there are people who have the ability to control their respective elements for example, people in the Fire Nation can control fire, people in the Earth Kingdom can control earth, and so on and so forth. These people are referred to as benders. The Avatar, Aang, is the only person who can master all four elements. According to Bryan Konietzko in the previously mentioned DVD featurette, the series is about a world out of balance. There were these four cultures that at one time had found a way to coexist and it all fell out of balance, and that's the avatar's job. That's why he or she is born in each nation in a cycle. To kind of spread the love and keep balance in the world. Throughout the series there are continued motifs of reincarnation, martial arts, and balance all motifs that are present in various Asian cultures. But in spite of all of the evidence that marked the Avatar universe (as well as the characters within that universe) as Asian and Inuit, director M. Night Shyamalan claimed that the animated series was ambiguous as to what race (if any) was being portrayed in each of the characters. In a 2010 interview, Shyamalan explained:

Gutierrez 4 The Anime artists intentionally put ambiguous features on the characters so that you see who you want to see in it. It's part of the art form. [] If there's an issue with why Anime does not put particularly specific Asian features from the PC Asian types that people think should be there ... take it up with Anime animators. It has nothing to do with me. But while Shyamalan states that the race of the characters is ambiguous and thus not subject to being casted as Asian Americans, Shyamalan continued to defend his casting choices, which continued to play into the politics of production. 3. Politics of Production Before going into detail about the ways in which M. Night Shyamalan addressed the whitewashing of the hero roles, we must first define a few key terms. Racialization: Omi and Winant first used this term in 1986 to define the way in which people were marked by race. Kim sums up this idea by saying, Racialization can be defined as a process of assigning social and economic status according to race. From a racial-formation point of view, race is a matter of both social structure and cultural representation. In this way, racialization is structural and ideological both, not either-or (28). That is, racialization is a structural and ideological process through which bodies are given racial meaning. This meaning is often interlinked with ideas of social and economic status. Whitewash: Used in reference to the way in which the hero roles of The Last Airbender were given to white or white-passing actors. Whitewashing is described by John Gabriel as the process of cultural bleaching (5). Given the way that fans had perceived the characters as Asian or Inuit, the casting of white actors can be seen as a process of cultural bleaching, which then strips the characters they portray of their cultural meaning. Through this process of cultural

Gutierrez 5 bleaching, these bodies are seen as neutral. Richard Dyer explains, this property of whiteness, to be everything and nothing, is the source of its representational power (qtd. in Lopez 5). Whereas racialization marks people of color with a perceived social and economic status, whitewashing works to neutralize a representation. Orientalism: A term first coined by Edward Said, orientalism is understood by many as the way in which the Western world views those in the East. Said explains, Orientalism is the discipline by which the Orient was (and is) approached systematically, as a topic of learning, discovery, and practice (73). Implied in this explanation is the view of non-Westerners as the other. Orientalism can be seen as the way in which Asians are specifically othered. Through these key terms, we will be better able to analyze the way in which the politics of production played out through the public sphere, as well as the ways in which whitewashing affected the representation taking place on screen. For many fans, the casting call was the first warning sign, which had stated that the film was looking for actors who were Caucasian or Other Ethnicities to fill the hero roles (Hoffman). While at first glance this call may be seeking all ethnicities, it is important to note that Caucasian is the only ethnicity that is explicitly stated. In doing this, racialized or minority actors are given second preference while white actors are seen as the preferred candidates. Thus the films casting of Noah Ringer as Aang, Nicola Peltz as Katara, and Jackson Rathbone as Sokka have all spoken to this white preference. In the days leading up to the films premiere, Shyamalan defended his casting choices, stating in a conference call interview that The Last Airbender is the most culturally diverse movie series of all time. He argues that this is because the demographics of the films universe can be broken down as follows:

Gutierrez 6 Air nomads Mixed race Earth kingdom East Asian, African Fire nation South Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean Water tribe European/Caucasian

This means, then, that the majority of the Avatar universe is non-white. However, although Shyamalan takes pride in the diversity of the universe as a whole, viewers themselves are not primarily concerned with the background characters. Instead, the viewers of films watch for the heroes, as they get the most screen time and are central to the plot of the movie. Thus, the way in which movie-goers read or interpret this casting becomes very important. 4. Fan Campaigns Organizations such as MANAA and Racebending.org went on to read the casting of the film within an oppositional code. Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist, explains that a person who reads media within the oppositional code detotalizes the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message within some alternative framework of reference (172-3). The preferred code is understood to be the dominant-hegemonic code, a code in which hegemonic ideas, such as whiteness and patriarchy, continue to exist and are accepted as natural. Thus, by reading the whitewashing within the oppositional code, MANAA and Racebending.org turn their focus to the implications of racial representation (or lack thereof) within the hero roles. However, for these organizations, and others like them, the main solution to voice discontent (aside from letter-writing and picketing) was to boycott the film. This boycotting then makes it difficult to read the film beyond the whitewashed roles. Since the films release, Racebending.org has posted various scene analyses from the film. However, much of these analyses continue to operate within the oppositional code, which,

Gutierrez 7 although an excellent tool for promoting social change (Hall 173), ultimately fall short because of the attention to authenticity toward the animated series. However, the principal issue is not that of authenticity, but rather of representation. 5. Scene Analysis In order to analyze this scene, I will be applying concepts from Stuart Halls lecture entitled Stuart Hall: Representation & the Media. In this lecture, Hall focuses on the power of the visual image and notes that the meaning of media is not fixed, though ideology attempts to fix the meaning. Thus, with whitewashed hero roles, the media moves one step closer toward fixing the idea of white heroes. At the same idea, this whitewashing reinforces the idea of the Asian American actor as an unviable option for a film hero. This concept can also be traced back to Edward Saids notion of orientalism, through which Asian Americans are constantly viewed as the other. The scene in question I will be analyzing takes place in an Earth village, which is notably comprised of East Asians. In this scene, Aang (Noah Ringer) attempts to rally these citizens of the Earth kingdom so that they earthbend and protect their homes from the Fire Nation. He is joined by Katara (Nicola Peltz), a Waterbender, and her older brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), a non-bender from the Southern Water Tribe. By looking at the bodies of the actors, it is easy to see that the community in need is racialized (as East Asians) while the heroes are free from this assignment of status due to their whiteness. While the scene in question is rather short and appears to speak for itself, there is one piece of dialogue that demands attention. When Aang attempts to move the Earthbenders into action, he says:

Gutierrez 8 Earthbenders! Why are you acting this way? You are powerful and amazing people. You dont need to live like this! There is earth right beneath your feet. The ground is an extension of who you are! If the Avatar had returned would that mean anything to you? Although it is the duty of the Avatar to restore balance in the world, the racialization of the community in need, as well as the visual whiteness of the hero, works to give the role a new significance. That is, there are implications at work, especially within the dominant-hegemonic code. Stuart Hall defines reading within the dominant-hegemonic code as simply accepting the media as is. Additionally, Hall states that the hegemonic viewpoint attempts to define all possible meanings within a culture and, most importantly, it carries with it the stamp of legitimacy it appears coterminous with what is natural, inevitable, taken for granted about the social order (172). That is to say, the hegemony goes undetected by the viewers, despite its strong attempts to fix meaning. In this scene, the most prevalent hegemonic viewpoint is that of the white savior. With this idea of the white savior, communities of color are portrayed as incapable of helping themselves and therefore need a white savior to rescue them. Julio Cammoroto explains, The underlying assumption is that people of color, on their own, fail to enact resilience, resistance, and success . . . [any] achievements in these areas seem to result from the initiatives of the white savior (245).!Because Aang is able to galvanize the public into fighting back, he given the credit for the uprising. However, little is said about the Earth villages resilience in its ability to continue living despite the oppressive control of the fire nation. The village also remained resistant, as the people were able to preserve its knowledge of bending in secret while constantly being watched by the Fire Nation.

Gutierrez 9 Additionally, another hegemonic viewpoint at work in this scene is that of white actors being more of an accessible stand-in for the audience. In his lecture, Stuart Hall says our concern over proliferation of images in our culture is due to the idea that they constantly construct[s] us, through our fantasy relationship to the image, in a way which implicates us in the meaning. That is, we are called upon to identify with the images we see on screen. Because our white heroes are not racialized, audiences are thus more likely to put themselves in the place of the heroes. As stated by Iwamura, in regards to the decision to cast white actor David Carradine over Chinese American actor Bruce Lee in the television series Kung Fu, "To properly draw a sympathetic connection, the audience had to be able to visually see themselves in him, in other words, see at least a hint of recognizable whiteness somehow reflected back to them in the most visceral manner" (138). Whiteness, then, works its silent and invisible (Lopez 5) power simply by the appearance of white actors. 6. Conclusions The whitewashing of heroes in The Last Airbender is problematic due to the powerful influence of visual representation. The film made over $300 million worldwide (The Last Airbender, Nash Information Services), so one can conclude that the film was able to gather a well-sized audience in spite of the fan outcry. Audiences continue to be affected by visual representation every day, and this can be problematic given the hegemonic exclusion of Asian Americans in hero roles. Whitewashed roles continue to have a presence in Hollywood film due to the small but powerful studios that dictate the taste of the mainstream. Consider the very definition of Hollywood film: a film intended for a mainstream audience and released by one of the major filmmaking companies around Hollywood, California, such as MGM, Universal, Paramount, etc

Gutierrez 10 (Benshoff and Griffin 21). This corresponds nicely to the way in which Stuart Hall introduces the issue of power in media representation. Stuart Hall poses the issue in his lecture stating, Who has the power, in what channels, to circulate which meanings to whom? the issue of power can never be bracketed out from the question of representation. Thus, meaning is always being made, and this meaning comes into being through negotiation of power and discourse. There is a lot to be said about how M. Night Shyamalan, a man of Asian descent, continued to defend his casting decisions and insisted that the practice was not discriminatory. The rhetoric he utilized in upholding his position was fascinating, especially in how he pointed to his decision to cast Dev Patel (of Indian descent) as Zuko, the bad boy who later turns out to have a heart of gold. But regardless of the casting of Zuko, the immediately perceivable heroes of the series, Aang, Katara, and Sokka, are all white. Although Shyamalan claims that race is non-existent in the fantasy universe of benders, the fact still remains that the film exists in our racialized world, therefore it is subject to criticism on race and given the long and complex history of negative Asian American portrayals in television and film, the whitewashing is just as negative. In his lecture, Stuart Hall said, absence means something and signifies as much as presence. What is present on screen is constantly being compared to what isnt there, and with a lack of Asian American heroes in the live-action adaptation, whitewashing continues to reify the idea of Asian Americans as unviable heroes. For this reason, interrogation of media continues to be an important concept, as it works to analyze and make stereotypes uninhabitable.

Gutierrez 11 Works Cited Aoki, Guy. "The Last Airbender - Letter to the Producer." Letter to Sam Mercer. 11 Feb. 2009. The Last Airbender. Media Action Network for Asian Americans. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. <http://www.manaa.org/lastairbender.html>. Benshoff, Harry M., and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies. Malden, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print. Cammarota, Julio. "Blindsided By The Avatar: White Saviors And Allies Out Of Hollywood And In Education." Review Of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies 33.3 (2011): 242-259. ERIC. Web. 27 April 2012. Gabriel, John. Whitewash: Racialized Politics and the Media. London: Routledge, 1998. Print. Hall, Stuart. "Encoding/Decoding." 1980. Ed. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. 163-73. Print. Hoffman, Jordan. "Frank Marshall Clarifies Key Issue in Racebending Controversy."UGO.com. UGO Entertainment, 8 Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://www.ugo.com/movies/frank-marshall-clarifies-key-issue-in-racebendingcontroversy>. Iwamura, Jane Naomi. Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. Kim, L.S. "Serving" American Orientalism: Negotiating Identities In The Courtship Of Eddie's Father."!Journal Of Film & Video!56.4 (2004): 21-33. International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text. Web. 5 March 2012. The Last Airbender. Dir. M. Night Shyamalan. Perf. Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone. Paramount, 2010. DVD. The Last Airbender. Nash Information Services, LLC. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://www.thenumbers.com/movies/2010/BENDR.php>. Lopez, Lori K. "Fan-activists and the Politics of Race in The Last Airbender." International Journal of Cultural Studies (2011): 1-15. SAGE. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon, 1978. Print. Shyamalan, M Night. "M Night Shyamalan in His Own Words on The Last Airbender Race Controversy." Interview. Indie Movies Online, 7 July 2010. Web. 7 Apr. 2012. <http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/news/m-night-shyamalan-in-his-own-words-on-the-

Gutierrez 12 last-airbender-race-controversy-250610>. Siek, Stephanie. "Is Hollywood 'whitewashing' Asian Roles?" In America - CNN.com Blogs. Cable News Network, 13 Jan. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2012. <http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/is-hollywood-whitewashing-asian-roles/>. Soe, Valerie, et al. MEDIA. Encyclopedia of Asian American Issues Today. Ed. Edith WenChu Chen, Grace J. Yoo. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. Web. 27 Apr. 2012. Stuart Hall: Representation & the Media. Dir. Sut Jhally. Perf. Stuart Hall. Media Education Foundation, 1997. Videocassette. Tuan, Mia. Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites?: The Asian Ethnic Experience Today. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1998. Print. Weaver, Andrew J. "The Role of Actors Race in White Audiences Selective Exposure to Movies." Journal of Communication (2011): 369-85. Wiley. Web. 6 Apr. 2012. Wong, Eugene F. On Visual Media Racism: Asians in the American Motion Pictures. New York: Arno, 1978. Print. Wu, Frank H. Yellow: Race in America beyond Black and White. New York: Basic, 2002. Print.