#279 - Icon totally relevant, holy shit.

[reileen]

From Kotaku: Suspect arrested for threatening to blow up Hudson

Metropolitan Police have arrested a 29-year-old man for threatening to blow up Japanese game maker Hudson. The suspect, Takao Ike of Kanagawa Prefecture, was apparently dissatisfied with the quality of Hudson's games.

From October 2008 to January 16 of this year, the suspect threatened Hudson 11 times, sending emails that said things like he was sending a bomb to the company that would kill everyone or demanding that 80 trillion yen be brought to JR Takamatsu Station.

JR Takamatsu Station is in Kanagawa Prefecture. The suspect worked part-time as a courier.

In a signed affidavit, the suspect admitted, "I did it because I posted my demands concerning the games, but the games didn't improve."

This is seriously too perfect to be real. I have to admit, I'm torn between "Protesting: URE DOIN IT RONG" and "Yeah, YOU GIVE THOSE LAZY SONS-OF-BITCHES AT HUDSON THE WHAT FOR!"

(Thanks to blackryuomega4 for bringing this to my attention!)

***

In other (less amusing) news, there's been some changes to the whitewashed casting of the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie! Dev Patel is slated to star as Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. Okay, so, great, we've got an Actor of Color...but he has to play the villain? When all of the heroes are white and the "ethnics" are only okay to show on-screen as background scenery? No. Just no. You fail at multiculturalism, Hollywood. I suppose it's just coincidence that Mr. Patel had the lead role on a little film called Slumdog Millionaire, right?

Also, Jessica Jade Andres (who?) is, according to this article, supposed to play "the Earth Kingdom's representative, Suki." Say what? She's going to play this chick?! (Also, what's up with that "Earth Kingdom's representative" deal? Kyoshi Island is considered Earth Kingdom, yes, but they didn't really have much connection to the big Earth Kingdom powerhouses of Omashu and Ba Sing Se.) (Also also, that article states that Shyamalan is planning a three-movie story arc. Oh my Gods, I weep to think of how he's going to end up butchering Toph's character. OH M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN NOOOOOOO) Just...ARGH.

Anyone who comes up to me and goes "Geez, there's just no pleasing you people, is there?" is going to get hexed nine times to Hades and back. Seriously, is it too much to ask for some fair - note the qualifier! - representation of people who look like me in popular media in this supposedly enlightened age that elected a black man to the office POTUS? It's not an issue of "political correctness" (STABBITY STAB I HATE THAT TERM, IT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE AND THEN BE FROZEN IN ETERNITY IN JUDECCA) - it's an issue of respecting the diversity present in the world, and in the United States in particular since that's where this fuckover is happening.

-Reileen
I want everything back but you

Comments

[reileen.livejournal.com]

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.)

[dantaron.livejournal.com]

In regards to this particular reply, you repeated what I already said in my personal comment part. xD

"Personally, I have to facepalm at the Avatar thing here, as well. Considering if you're casting whites in the role of characters who were originally Asian, that's changing the story for whatever reason, and basically going out of your way to make it white, which is ignorant. Also, their excuse there that they were the best actors for the job? If the job was to play such and such a character who looked like this, they should have followed it. >_>"

Aka, whitewashing. =P In the particular example of Avatar, I know it's made of major fail. xD