The best part of watching your childhood dreams be crushed before your very eyes, is knowing that there are thousands of other people experiencing the exact same thing, at the exact same moment. There’s something comforting in the unity that lurks behind the pain of having your favorite television show be so thoroughly disrespected, as was the fate of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I went to see the movie less than a week after it’s opening in 2010, and left less than an hour into the movie.
When the movie started I was immediately struck with the thought that the characters didn 't look right. The only trailer i’d seen didn’t actually show any faces, except for the main characters very briefly. This close I could see that Katara and her brother …show more content…
Even when movies are set in places such as Japan or Hawaii, you will still find a white person as the principal cast, despite the fact that they are the minority of the area, as is the case for Aloha and The Last Samurai. This practice is known as Colorism, the discrimination against people of certain skin tones. In film this is done by casting a lighter skinned person to play a traditionally darker skinned person, or by having an all minority cast, except for the principals. While whitewashing isn’t as prevalent as it used to be it still happens, and as it falls colorism rises to take its place, causing minority groups to continue to lose job opportunities in the arts. How do you put an end to trends that have been happening for decades, that remain unrecognised as an issue by a large portion of …show more content…
As film was still growing its global takeover in the early 1900s, Jim Crow laws were still in Effect and the golden age of lynch mobs was reaching its halfway point, causing people of color to fear leaving their communities. Before the first successful black film company, black people were portrayed through blackface. Blackface of the time either portrayed black people as ignorant dancers meant for comedic relief, or they were used for small scenes almost unrecognisable as in Colored Troops Disembarking. Black face remained a popular device through the development of film with speaking actors. Al Jolson 's character Jack in The Jazz Singer, one of the first films with dialogue, is a singer who performs in blackface. Oscar Micheaux, credited as the first African American director and filmmaker, came onto the scene in the 1910’ and created what is known of as ‘racial film’, films written by, about, and for black people of the time. Creating 44 films, Micheaux almost singlehandedly brought black people into film (Robinson 28). However, while Micheaux was innovative, and a large reason as to how black people were able to become film artists, his films were highly colorized. In his 1920 film Within our Gates the educated and successful blacks are all either biracial or light skinned, while
When the movie started I was immediately struck with the thought that the characters didn 't look right. The only trailer i’d seen didn’t actually show any faces, except for the main characters very briefly. This close I could see that Katara and her brother …show more content…
Even when movies are set in places such as Japan or Hawaii, you will still find a white person as the principal cast, despite the fact that they are the minority of the area, as is the case for Aloha and The Last Samurai. This practice is known as Colorism, the discrimination against people of certain skin tones. In film this is done by casting a lighter skinned person to play a traditionally darker skinned person, or by having an all minority cast, except for the principals. While whitewashing isn’t as prevalent as it used to be it still happens, and as it falls colorism rises to take its place, causing minority groups to continue to lose job opportunities in the arts. How do you put an end to trends that have been happening for decades, that remain unrecognised as an issue by a large portion of …show more content…
As film was still growing its global takeover in the early 1900s, Jim Crow laws were still in Effect and the golden age of lynch mobs was reaching its halfway point, causing people of color to fear leaving their communities. Before the first successful black film company, black people were portrayed through blackface. Blackface of the time either portrayed black people as ignorant dancers meant for comedic relief, or they were used for small scenes almost unrecognisable as in Colored Troops Disembarking. Black face remained a popular device through the development of film with speaking actors. Al Jolson 's character Jack in The Jazz Singer, one of the first films with dialogue, is a singer who performs in blackface. Oscar Micheaux, credited as the first African American director and filmmaker, came onto the scene in the 1910’ and created what is known of as ‘racial film’, films written by, about, and for black people of the time. Creating 44 films, Micheaux almost singlehandedly brought black people into film (Robinson 28). However, while Micheaux was innovative, and a large reason as to how black people were able to become film artists, his films were highly colorized. In his 1920 film Within our Gates the educated and successful blacks are all either biracial or light skinned, while