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No. 96918
>>96913
Then frame it as an issue of inequality instead. Using a biased system against itself. Equality assumes the casting call didn't stress "Caucasian" before "or any other ethnicity," as if non-Caucasian is some sort of "other." "Yeah, we're asking for Caucasians...or anything else, I guess." Equality assumes the movie didn't reserve every last speaking protagonist role for White actors (Suki played by Jessica Andres, half-filipino and half-white, would have broken the mold, but she was cut from the movie. Gabrielle, who played Yue, is a lot of different ethnicities, but she just put herself as "white" on her MySpace anyway and she does absolutely nothing but kill herself in the movie so franky, she doesn't count.)
At the same time, the issue of ethnicity and accuracy to the source material isn't as large an issue with Thor: The Asgardians were basically Space Techno-Wizards, not actual Norse Gods, and Marvel never cared about authenticity to the original legends (Thor has red hair, for example.) Idris Elba can now join the list of actors who were able to play originally Caucasian characters...yes, he gets to join Will Smith and maybe two or three others. The Last Airbender gets to join the list of movies that outright replace Asians and North American Native (just those two, never mind any other minority) which goes back as far as the start of Cinema itself.
This isn't an issue of "X can only play X in movies." This is an ongoing issue of "X-" (meaning Asians and Inuits in TLA's case) "-can't play X, but Y-" (White actors) "-can play X, and has always been able to play X." In any case, "reverse racism" isn't an issue in Hollywood right now, the opposite is.
>>96910
Remember when I said that we dealt with a troll going on and on about how anime is better, female characters are annoying hags who never get what they deserve, and that Avatar needed violence? How we dealt with that guy for long enough that we knee-jerk react? Take that, now make it go all the way back to December of 2008, where we first heard of what happened. Imagine that we're not shooting down a troll, but arguing amongst ourselves and with others. Constantly having to tell people why this was wrong and why simple equivalencies like Idris Elba or Will Smith don't equate or nullify what happened here. Imagine that went on for a full year and a half until the movie was released. Now you know why we're shooting down a guy who says it wasn't a big deal.
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