In an interesting turn of events, Jesse McCartney is no longer going to portray Prince Zuko in the Avatar movie. Zuko will now be played by Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire).
While this is better casting, including a non-white person in the previously all-white main cast, it also brings up another issue for me. The cast is now like this: the good guys are all white, and the bad guy is brown. *hand smacks forehead*
Why does it have to be such an uphill battle to cast non-white people in this movie? I have to say I’m rather disappointed in the Avatar creators, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, for letting this happen. M. Night Shyamalan, who is directing the live-action movies, you should know better than this.
What does this say to non-white kids out there, looking to the Avatar show as example of diversity? Your cartoon has Asian characters, but sorry, in reality, heroes must be white?