9.25 Best of September Issue

Page 31

HILITE.ORG

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REPRESENTASIAN Revival of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” franchise demonstrates accurate Asian representation, rest of entertainment industry should follow suit CHLOE SUN COLUMN

W

hen the world needed him most, the Avatar returned. Netflix re-released the beloved 2005 Nickelodeon show “Avatar: the Last Airbender” (ATLA) in May and its spinoff, “The Legend Of Korra,” in August, much to the delight of longtime fans and many new fans such as myself. Many credit the show’s widespread popularity to its intricate worldbuilding, character depth and most notably, its Asian representation. The show features no white characters; instead it portrays Chinese, Japanese, Inuit and Tibetan culture. From character building to clothing to beliefs to even fighting styles, there is very little stereotyping, and each culture is carefully represented instead of caricatured. Unfortunately, this degree of accurate representation is still rare—ATLA first aired 15 years ago, yet it is still somewhat revolutionary compared to Asian portrayal in media today. Moreover, awareness against blatant whitewashing of Asian characters has

barely improved since 2005. Ironiare still predominantly white. Not cally, ATLA itself has fallen victim to maintaining diversity behind the whitewashing—in 2010, a livescreen alters these movies’ meanaction movie adaptation hit theings to the communities they aters and was met with horror supposedly celebrate, and by many fans as all the Asian sends the message that divermain characters were played sity is being used as a token by white actors. Unfortunateinstead of a step toward a ly, even now it seems nothing more representative world. has changed—in August, the While I celebrate Asianoriginal creators of ATLA THAT’S ROUGH made, diverse shows and movleft the production of the ies like “Never Have I Ever,” BUDDY live-action series by Netflix “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Parbecause it wanted to open asite,” much of the entertainBY THE casting to white actors. ment industry has yet to learn that We have a long way to go when NUMBERS diversity cannot just be performait comes to real Asian representation. tive. There should be a better effort Our cultures are currently celebrated among mainstream entertainment to for their food, fashion and stories, give the reins to the people who repand yet the people that inspire Asian resent our cultures, both in front and was the H portrayals onscreen are rarely given behind the screen. number of the chance to accurately depict them. consecutive The views in this column do not necesThis extends behind the screen as days ATLA was sarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. well­. While the faces of movies like #1 on Netlfix Reach Chloe Sun at csun@hilite.org the live-action “Aladdin” and “Mulan” are beautifully diverse, the crew NEWS WEEK This column was originally published and creative team for these movies SOURCE online on Sept. 22, 2020

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SLEEP SCHEDULES Sleep before an in-person day “Phew, I got the homework from the last 4 days done and now for my 5 hours of sleep”

2:00 a.m.

ANIKET BISWAL GRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

Sleep before a virtual day “Only 3 a.m. ?? I’ve got so much more time for my homework. Who needs sleep this early?”

3:00 a.m.


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