How Paramount Alienated the Avatar: The Last Airbender fan base
By Claire Gill
The relationship between media companies and online participatory fandoms is difficult to define, categorize, or even understand from an outside source. While media producers create television programs, music, and movies that people all over the world view and enjoy, there is a select group of people among these who are part of online subcultures devoted to the various texts that are produced. These fans are often brand loyal and have been embraced by some of the most long lived franchises in both film and television.
In recent times, most particularly through the rise of the Internet as both an advertising forum and a social networking medium. This has increased the amount of media that companies expose to potential consumers, including fandoms. Said media is then analyzed and adapted by fans, who become very protective and loyal to texts they form attachments with. Fans engage with one another on message boards, in role playing forums. They create fan art and construct elaborate costumes that emulate their favorite characters. In short, they provide a lot of free advertising for media companies, as well as form a loyal fan base which “supports” its property of choice by purchasing it, as well as other ancillary products that have the property brand. With this “support” often comes a feeling of partial ownership on the part of the fans, which can result in a clash between them and the companies that hold the intellectual copyrights to the fandom’s chosen text.
The latest outcry of fandom against a cinematic appropriation of a text is in the case of M. Night Shymalan’s next film, The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. The series was an epic that spanned three seasons and was set in an alternate world where elemental “bending,” a sort of inner magic that allows certain people known as benders to manipulate the elements of their world depending on their heritage, is central to the balance of humanity and the natural world.
What has angered the fans is the disloyalty of the planned movie to the original text. Avatar The Last Airbender as a television show was primarily based on ancient Asian culture and spiritual ideas. The costumes, traditions, and appearances of characters in the series are almost all Asian in appearance and theme with the exception of the Water Tribe, which is heavily influenced by Inuit culture. Likewise, the series’ characters were designed to look Asian and Native American. However, when the casting for the live action adaptation was released, it was revealed that the four main characters would be played by white actors. In the original series, these characters were depicted as having either an Asian (Aang and Zuko) or Native American (Sokka and Katara) appearance.
Screenshot: Katara, Aang, and Sokka from Season 1.
To many fans, the casting of white actors in the roles of nonwhite characters has caused a rift between them and the owners of the original text. In this case, Paramount/Nickelodeon is viewed, by fans, as being out of touch with not only the fans, but also the original text. The comments of the casting director regarding erroneous ethnic costuming caused a further stir online fan backlash that deemed the company which controlled the rights to Avatar to be unfamiliar not only with the fan base, but also with its own text.
As of this writing, there is a general consensus among the online fandom of Avatar, who sometimes refer to themselves as Avatards to indicate a high level of textual loyalty and online fan participation, that the upcoming film is not a recreation of the original text, but rather a “whitewashed,” mainstream re-imagining. Many fans, upon hearing of the casting decisions for the main four characters, have decided to not support the movie. What this means in terms of participatory fandom is that the fandom will not buy movie tickets or ancillary products, or encourage anyone else to. This is a drastic step for the Avatar fan base, as they have previously been extremely active in terms of the generation of fan media and the purchasing of branded merchandise. Losing the faith of such a dedicated fandom could prove troublesome for Paramount. While the film will undoubtedly make at least some money, the separation of a fan community and the long awaited feature film could have a financial backlash
This shows the lack of understanding of the property, which is peculiar on the part of Paramount, the owners of the perennial Star Trek franchise. Paramount embraces the Trekkies and has learned the benefits that a long term participatory fandom community can offer.
This is not the first instance of the Avatar fandom feeling alienated by Paramount, merely the latest and most extreme. Since 2005, several events have caused growing rifts between the fandom and the parent company that owns Avatar. One of the first events that caused some disconnect between the parent company and the fandom was an action figure licensing deal with toy giant, Mattel. When the figures reached stores, none of the series’ strong female characters were included in the assortment. Actually, no female characters were included in the assortment. This caused an immediate backlash with fans of the series who felt that the show presented positive, strong female characters. The absence of Katara, the respnsible, hopeful Waterbender, as well as Toph, the blind, spunky Earthbending prodigy caused a letter writing campaign that pleaded with Mattel to release figures of these fan favorite characters. Many of these petitions and letters remain open, despite the disappearance of toys from store shelves as the line ended (http://www.oafe.net/articulation/0707.php).
Further fan alienation occurred when Nickelodeon aired Season 3 in two parts, with more than six months between airing the first half of the season and the second half of the season, despite the fact that the episodes were completed. The original airdate was pushed from late spring to midsummer, causing a scheduling conflict with the release of a novelized adaptation of the series finale, which was released in the Spring of 2008 to coincide with the original scheduled air date. As such, many fans bought the book and read the end of the series rather than wait an additional two months to find out what happened.
When M. Night Shymalan was announced as the director of a trilogy of films based off the series, fans were skeptical, but hopeful. Now in the wake of a “whitewashing” of a predominantly Asian and Inuit culture influenced series, as well as the following culturally ignorant statements on the part of Deedee Rickets, the film’s casting director in reference to the open casting call for extras:
“”We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire," she said. "If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen."(http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/news/2009/01/23/News/Try-Out.For.A.Role.For.M.Night.Shyamalan-3594896.shtml)
With the release of that statement, many fans have withdrawn complete interest from the film, feeling that their text is in the hands of people who are unfamiliar with it and don’t care enough about it to familiarize themselves with it or with the participatory fandom participants who hold it dear. Others have written letters expressing their concern over casting decisions to Paramount. There is currently a schism between the Avatar> fandom and the legal owners of the text as to what the film should be, one that only time and possibly recasting will be able to heal, if Paramount wants it healed, that is.
Links/Information of Interest:
A LiveJournal Community regarding the whitewashing of the Avatar movie has been created and has initiated a well spoken letter writing campaign to change the cast to a more ethnically diverse and series accurate cast:
http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/646.html
An excellent fan blog entry on this topic can be found here:
http://derekkirkkim.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-day-in-politics-same-old-racist.html
If you would like to address this subject, letters should be directed to:
Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall
Kennedy/Marshall Company
619 Arizona Avenue, Fl. 2
Santa Monica, California 90401
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