Let Asians Be Asians

In the age of Stuff White People Like, it can feel dangerously fetishistic for your average white male blogger married to a half Chinese girl to seem overly interested in Asian culture.
I know what people think when they see us walking around town, because I can't help think the same thing when I see a white guy with an Asian woman. You know what I'm talking about. Mail order bride, sexual fetish, math tutor.
It's wrong and I feel bad about it, but this is the power of the media. Even the most culturally savvy among us are not immune to the images we ingest.
To try to counteract the stereotypes, I take great pains to make sure my Chinese bride isn't walking too far behind me in public, and I've finally trained her to not cover her mouth when she bashfully giggles at every hilarious thing I say. Her sword work is now confined to the garage and she can only wear three pieces of Hello Kitty! paraphernalia at a time.
So, we're doing our part to change the world, but apparently Hollywood and the rest of the imagemakers are not.
The other night, while my wife was engaging in her stereotypically Asian pastime of surfing the internet (they're just so cute when their adept little hands are working with technology) for gay-friendly and lesbian comics, she stumbled upon racebending.com, a site created to protest the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan (real name Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan) film, The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
I've never seen the show, but the site's creators say it "featured Asian characters in a fantasy setting inspired and informed by a variety of Asian cultures. The characters fight with East Asian martial arts, have Asian features, dress in clothing from Asian cultures, and write with Chinese characters."
That sounds nice, and culturally appropriate. Of course, we're not going to be allowed to see a show with Asian characters that doesn't involve martial arts, etc., but even so, the site claims the program's "cast and setting were a refreshing departure from predominantly white American media, and were a large part of the show's appeal as well as an inspiration to many Asian American children."
Then Paramount gets involved to turn it into a big budget blockbuster and decide to cast young white actors in the lead roles of Katara, Sokka and Prince Zuko.
While extremely disappointing, this isn't surprising. You've probably heard of Hollywood's history of performers in blackface, but maybe you missed the long and star-studded list of actors who appeared in "yellowface." Katharine Hepburn, Mickey Rooney, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Sellers, John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Lon Chaney and of course, David Carradine took unfortunate, embarrassing and sick turns getting made up to play Asian characters.
The casting announcement last December outraged fans of show, who began a letter writing campaign to convince Shyamalan and the producers, big-timers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, to change their minds.
And it worked, sort of.
While the protesters never heard from the producers, it was announced in February that Dev Patel, star of the Oscar-sweeping film Slumdog Millionaire, which if you didn't notice, featured an all-Asian cast, would replace white teeny-bopper Jesse McCartney in the role of Prince Zuko. Victory! Right?
Nope, Prince Zuko is the lead bad guy. And it seems that all the other Asian and dark-skinned actors cast in supporting roles will play characters from the "evil, genocidal" Fire Nation, while white actors will play the roles of the heroic Water Tribe.
As liberal as Hollywood is supposed to be, the entertainment business is excruciatingly slow and stubborn when it comes to breaking racial stereotypes. In fact, it does way more creating than breaking.
It took until the 1990s and the otherwise inane blockbuster Independence Day before movie studios felt the world was ready to see a black man save the world from aliens, and it was a quaint little novelty in 1998 when black actor Morgan Freeman played the President of the United States in Deep Impact.
Ten years later, we actually have a black President, but Hollywood still thinks the ticket-buying public covered in Asian character tattoos isn't ready to watch Asian actors be the heroes in a story replete with Asian themes. Just imagine how long it will be before we see an Asian guy play the lead in a major studio romantic comedy. No, Harold and Kumar don't count.
While we wait:
1) Go to racebending.com and sign the petition.
2) Read how the casting director was quoted telling extras "If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, where lederhosen."
3) Read how the white lead actor told MTV "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."
4) Spread the word
5) Don't see the movie