Avatar the Last Airbender Movie and "Racebending"

http://www.racebending.com/v2/

I feel that as a fan of Avatar, I should state my opinion about this situation. But first, yes, Avatar the animated TV show displays a wide range of ethnic groups, and that's pretty darn neat.

The issue arises from Paramount's decision to cast actors that do not hail from the same ethnicity as their animated counterpart. I think this is just all blown out of proportion. Yes, admittedly, having the 100% true ethnic cast would add a hightened element of reality to the conversion of Avatar to the live action big screen, but as far as I'm concerned, so long as the actors play their part well and are dedicated to their role, that's fine by me. I don't think Paramount is being racist- I think they're being lazy. They're just too lazy to find ethnic actors and actresses. I would agree that they were specifically being racist if they chose well known actors over ethnic ones, but as far as I can tell that has not happened. It sounds like they audtioned and whoever showed up showed up. Could they have scouted and found good ethnic actors? Yes. But they're lazy and cheap. Not racists.

I'm more concerned that they stick to the plot, as it is a very in-depth and intriguing plot. If they keep the story entact in its entirety, then I'm in. But the fact that Racebending brought up about the lack of Chinese caligraphy kinda makes me have doubts. And what about M. Night "Shamwow"? His directing record lately hasn't been all too impressive. Making me doubt this project even more. I think it's clear that regardless of the issue with the movie, the animated series will always be better.

Not a Fan of University Classes

So I decided to take it upon myself this fall semester to register for only two studio classes (Painting and Graphic Design) and fill the rest of my roster with GenEds. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Temple's "General Education" Program, picture being lobotomized two to three times a week, while being bombarded with messages like "Diversity matters" and "Today we will be discussing what identity means" or even "URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator; you will have a quiz on this." It's pointless, mind numbing and required by the University if you plan on getting a degree.

So I devised a way to change this. For the past two days, even though it was the first day of classes I have been diligently taking notes. Below, I present my notes from the past two days, with commentary.

Perhaps I'll upload some more notes, but for now This is just so you get an idea of how I can intensively "doodle" productively. I started the next page with "Cyberspace and Society", which due to the fact that it is 5:30-8:00 PM, I managed to get almost a half page (we even got out early). Can't wait to see what my Painting and Graphic Design notes are like!

EDIT: Here's a link to the full size