Hollywood decides to recast Asian and Inuit characters with white actors in the live-action adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I wasn't going to talk about this because honestly it isn't anything new for Western media to bypass anyone that isn't white. However, it is really fucked up that they would purposely recast the whole cast as white when the series itself made it very obvious that its leads were of Asian (mostly Chinese) and Inuit descent. That's all I'm going to say about it, in the meantime ciderpress have an awesome post on the issue.

During our early Christmas dinner this weekend, the oldest of the nephews, who is 13, brought up the subject of the incredibly white child actors that had been picked for the film version. The three of them were confused and disappointed but unable to articulate exactly why. Then the youngest, all of 7 years old, asked me whether this meant that he couldn't be Aang when he played Avatar with his friends from now on.

- ciderpress

Also, glockgal have an awesome post about the most commonly-seen kneejerk racist responses. Read it if your automatic response to this post is 'It isn't a big deal'.

So, yeah, anyone that thinks whitewashing the cast is OK and acceptable because it isn't a big deal please don't talk to me about it. There is such a thing as healthy argument/discussion than there is pressing on my hot buttons that set my wrath upon you. Or in other word, scream it in your own little fucking corner.

So, I wake up this morning and wow, the anti-China sentiments and hate, dudes, really getting uncomfortable here. You can criticise the way the Chinese administration organised the Olympics, you can even criticise the way the Chinese government didn’t allow complete freedom of press. However, a comment like ‘As long as China doesn’t win’ really makes it personal and cross several lines. Criticise the regime all you want but make the fucking distinction between criticising a government and the people of the nation.

While I’ll be the first one to agree that the Chinese government sucks incredibly for the heavy censorship of the media as well as torture of its own people please look at your own country before throwing stones. And if you are one of those amazing people who actually have some great suggestions please do so that the Tibetan situation can be safely resolved without starting up dissent all over China that can potentially lead to more deaths, economic back lash and some fucking harsh military actions.

If you have a problem with the government than criticise the government, criticise the organisation committee, but shut the fuck up if you are just going to bad mouth China as a nation because honestly, from where I’m coming from that’s some real heavy racism.

It is ibarw (Intl. Blog Against Racism Week) week.

I’m Asian in a Western fandom. Media representation of race in Western media and fandom is fascinating to me. It is especially interesting when reality television seems to represent more people of colour than their fictional counterpart.

Also, I lost a lot of respect for Joss Whedon when there wasn’t one Asian cast member on Firefly. Especially when the universe was meant to be a mixture of Western and Easter where people spoke a bastardised version of Chinese and English. Hell, I don’t think I spotted one Asian extra.

So, that’s my post because anything else will probably make me froth at the mouth.

So, I have seen about 11 episodes of Heroes, and there are some truly awesome bits to the series - good plot, nice effects and of course HIRO and ANDO! But you know, I just can't get into the series, and I remember commenting to someone awhile back that the portrayal of certain female characters on the show makes me highly uncomfortable. Thinking about it I do believe that is one of the major issues I have with the series - I can't articulate it well enough, all I know is that whenever I think of the female characters on Heroes I think of women who inevitably gets sexualised in one way or another. Honestly, think of all female characters on Heroes, would you want any of them to be a female role model?

As for the race issue on Heroes - I don't even want to think about it, because Hiro and Ando's characterisation are awesome, but Mohinder makes me wince. So, um, overall - the show is something I'd watch if it is there but I'd not keep nor follow.