Ty Lee and Azula had brown hair. Not black like everyone else. Brown.
So? It's not like all Japanese people have exactly the same shade of hair. It naturally ranges from black to brown. Azula has the exact same hair color as
Zuko and their mother
Ursa. Here's young
Roku and Sozin -- brown hair and darker brown, nearly black hair. And look at the
kids from the Fire Nation school -- varying shades of brown, no black in sight. So you're wrong that "everybody else" has black hair. The only character I can think of whose hair is actually black is
Mai, and that's because she's a goth-girl character. Also so that she and Ty Lee would be visually distinctive characters when
teamed with Azula.
Ty Lee's was kind of dirty blond actually.
Dirty blond???
No way. In the screencaps, it's about the color of chocolate ice cream. Maybe you had the brightness on your TV up too high. (You're welcome for those screencaps, by the way.)
What? Who are you referring to?
The inmate in The Fire Nation prison. He had dark brown skin. And he certainly wasn't any Water Bender.
"Dark brown" isn't black. And what inmate were you referring to? You mean
Chit Sang? He's a bit swarthy, but it could just be a suntan. They do have suntans in Asia. And they don't all have exactly the same complexion any more than they have exactly the same hair color. Besides, Chit Sang has grey eyes.
I said SOUTH ASIAN. As in Pakistan. What Al Queda calls home.
You did specifically use the phrase "Evil Terrorist Arabs" in your previous post. Pakistanis aren't Arabs any more than Iranians are.
And the guy playing The Fire Lord, he's played a Muslim terrorist in just about everything he's ever done.
Looking over his
IMDb filmography, I find characters named Zip, Kip, Peter, Fraser, Nessus the Centaur, Daniel Freeman, Billy Williams, Pablo Escobar, Claudio Perrini, Mike Camello, Frank Herrera, Detective Franklin, Mort Whitman, Captain Ariel, and Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuck. Not exactly Muslim names. If anything, it looks like he tends to get cast as Latin or Mediterranean types as often as not. Even though he's actually a Maori from New Zealand. Are you sure you're not confusing him with Faran Tahir?
I didn't say that. What I said was that having most of the enemies played by SOUTH ASIANS and MIDDLE EASTERNERS seems to play into negative stereotypes that I'm tired of.
Understood, but my point is that a lot of the good guys, in the second and third films, at least, will be played by South and East Asians as well. So you do have a point about the first film creating an appearance of ethnic bias, and that's what's unfortunate about the casting of Katara and Sokka; but it should balance out somewhat in subsequent films as Toph becomes a regular, Suki gets more involved, and Zuko feels his way toward the light.
And the only "Middle Easterner" in the cast is Shaun Toub, who's playing Iroh, and Iroh is far from a villainous character. He's one of the most likeable, admirable, and capable characters in the entire series. Toub is completely miscast in the role, but the role is by no means an insult to his ethnic group.
I agree, many of the character designs are fairly well defined as far as ethnic makeup in Avatar, far better than most Anime. But the three main characters all look pretty indistinct, which may be on purpose to make them more accessible. I don’t have any problem with making them white.
Given that Katara and Sokka are by far the darkest-complexioned regular characters, I find it odd that you'd call them "indistinct." Aside from the blue eyes, they're clearly based on the Inuit.
I'm not sure what the Japanese must think of something like "The Simpsons", but that show makes no attempt at correct human anatomy, much less faces.
The Japanese would take such things entirely in stride. Tezuka's characters were just as caricatured. The Japanese invented the "super-deformed" look. And have you seen the crazy hairstyles in a lot of anime? Bart, Lisa, and Marge would fit right in with Goku and Yugi.
