|| All in the Famiglia

"Pop/R&B singer Jesse McCartney is in talks to play the Fire Nation’s evil prince Zuko. Exiled from the Fire Nation by his father, Zuko is sent to capture the Avatar in order to restore his honor and right to the throne.

The Last Airbender is being targeted for a July 2nd 2010 release."

First: Please check out this link if you're an Avatar fan.

Okay, I had some time to let the shock wear off, so I'm going to amend my post by explaining why this is so "WTF" to me.

So I see the poll on Tsubasa-mine's Deviantart journal, and immediately investigate. I find the above linked site (Click the picture) to see the cast list. The first thing I did when I got the link was scroll down to see who would play our favorite banished prince. Imagine my shock to see Jesse McCartney's picture there and name in big bold letters. Ho, but it gets better.

Scroll back up, now, and look, lo and behold, I don't know ANY of the other three cast members (Noah is an UK, intentionally.). Let the "WTF" begin.

First, let's set aside the fact that Zuko is going from having a low pitched rasp to sounding like a male Fran Drescher, let's focus, instead, on the fact that he, as well as the other three cast members playing the main roles (Aang, Katara, and Sokka) look like the closest they've been to Asian culture are Chinese leftovers and watching old MAD TV clips.

Besides just Zuko, look at the other three actors. Avatar is a show about Asian culture, and while it's one thing to cast roles to whoever for an animated feature, where most people don't even bother looking into who plays who, it's another entirely to take a series or setting that is SO CLEARLY Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese) and Inuit, and spit in it's face. The entire main cast is Caucasian. You really mean to tell me that they couldn't find a single Asian actor (or even an actor of other ethnicity that resembled the character AT LEAST A LITTLE) to play EVEN ONE of the four roles? REALLY?

Brilliant sum-up entry here.