It must also be noted, however, that they are specifically not white people. This is another side of the Avatar casting problem: the characters of that series are not coded as White. Not in their appearances, not in the way they dress, not in the world that they live in. The creators clearly took great pains to create a non-Euro-based fantasy world, both in terms of the physical environment and how the people look. So to plan a live-action adaptation where the main characters are all played by white actors is a slap in the face to this series - as well as to the People of Color who watch this series and can find positive role models who look like them. The Avatar casting is not "colorblind" casting (and the concept of "colorblindness" has its own internal issues anyway); this is whitewashed casting. I find it very hard to believe, to understate it, that Hollywood could not find any capable actors of color for these characters. Hollywood is in fucking California - that's got a huge-ass Asian population, from all sorts of Asian countries! There is an entire organization out there (The East West Players (http://www.eastwestplayers.org/)) that American actors of Asian/Pacific Islander descent can join to promote their work in dramatic media. You (general you) cannot seriously be telling me that all of these actors, never mind other actors unassociated with this group, were clearly not as talented as the white actors that Paramount chose? That is absolutely ridiculous, especially considering that at least two characters on the animated show (Prince Zuko and Uncle Iroh) are voiced by Asian-American voice actors. So, no, I don't buy the "colorblind casting" argument/defense one bit.

Long story short, Reileen has done a fair amount of reading on multiculturalism and issues of race not just for her HON301 class, but also from fandom (le gasp!), so now she needs to show everyone her learnings. (I'm fairly sure I'm preaching to the choir with you, but I just wanted to make you aware of a couple of finer points that you might not have known about.)