Last Airbender racially divided

The Last Airbender (M. Night Shyamalan 2010) is a film set in an ancient time where there are four main nations-the fire nation, the water nation, the earth nation and the air nation. The fire nation has taken it upon themselves to rule over all of the nations and become the most powerful nation. The only one who could stop the fire nation is the Avatar but he had disappeared but recently returned through a young kid called Ang and now he has to save the world.

Looking at M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Last Airbender based on the nickelodeon children’s television series Avatar: the Last Airbender there has been controversy over the fact that the different nations are racially divided in the film. Reading a UGO article online it readily points out these racial anxieties that may have triggered a public loathing of the film. Jordan Hoffman (interviewer) suggested to M Night the two leads are white yet they live among an Inuit community and M Night Shyamalan replied “When you see the whole movie, where the characters go, the Northern Water Tribe all have the European look that Sokka and Katara have, with a few exceptions here and there”. The fire nation which are the villains seem to be Arab such as the many villain characters in the 80s hard body action flicks. The racial division has caused tension among the fans of the popular tv series.

There are two issues at work here the fact that 2 white actors perform the two Inuit characters in the cartoon series brings up the issue of naturalization and the way white actors have a tendency to play ethnic or indigenous characters through the past decades as raised by Julie Codell in her article.

The other issue is orientalism specifically dealing with Arabian characters. Arabs are always shown as stupid, thieves and crooked evil men. The Last Airbender is no exception as it shows the Arab looking characters as the villains.