"The Last Airbender" Selling Out

First of all, it doesn't make sense to cast several white actors when the entire "Avatar" world is based off of Asian culture -- the food, the money, the architecture, the written language and the martial arts. In addition, the main character, Aang, and his fellow Airbenders are undoubtedly based off of Tibetan monks, and his friends Katara and Sokka from a Water tribe have several aspects of Inuits. But it's not only that. This would have been a great opportunity for actors of Asian descent to step into the spotlight. Instead, almost all of the white actors are going to be dressed-up with make-up to look like Asians. And that, I think, is wrong.

It's not only the injustice of "whitewashing" the cast, but it's also how the different skin colors are going to be portrayed. In the "Avatar" story, The Fire Nation is violently taking over the world. They are the obvious "bad guys" throughout the entire series; however, their ethnicity seems to be closer to Chinese. The most recent casting call wanted extras of Indian descent. So since Dev Patel is playing a character from the Fire Nation, then Indians will probably represent that "race," so to speak.

So basically, we're going to have the pure, light-skinned good guys try to defeat the dark-skinned bad guys.

Something really doesn't sound right here.

I'm not saying that every single role ever created has to be played by someone who is of the same ethnicity of the character. Sometimes there just aren't enough people of that ethnicity who try out for the part, like at a school. Or I just watched "Dr. Zhivago," and Omar Sharif, who is Egyptian, played a Russian character and was great. But at least an audience could be fooled. Not in this case. What are they going to do for the white actors who play Asian characters? That's a bit different. And this is Hollywood; there are plenty of unknowns out there who are great actors and are of Asian descent. Why they had to pick someone like Jackson Rathbone (who is just coming off the high of being in "Twilight") just doesn't make any sense to me.

Oh wait, that's right. Money.

But it's just so wrong. And I hate that it is because of money.

I'm hoping that the letter-writing campaign really does have an impact. Notice the word "hope." Because Hollywood just seems so screwed-up lately, it's crazy.

If you care about this and would like to write a letter, you can go to http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com for more information.

--ARIEL SIEGELMAN, YORK SUBURBAN HIGH SCHOOL