More on race in the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.

This I can stomache:

“My daughter looks at Katara and sees herself,” Shyamalan says “but her [non-South Indian] friends see themselves.”

The last bit of this makes me sick:

As the series continues, and we get into the Earth Nation, we will see more Asian and African (and African-American) heroes. From the looks of the first trailers, the only characters of color are baddies.

“It’s called irony,” Night said of the controversy in a follow-up phone call exclusive to UGO.

Someone please explain the “irony” to me.

M. Night Shyamalan: There you go. Well, it is the most culturally diverse tent-pole movie ever made. And I’m proud of it. It’s part of what drew me to the material, to see the faces of our whole world in this new world. And only time will assuage everyone and give them peace. Maybe they didn’t see the faces that they wanted to see but, overall, it is more than they could have expected. We’re in the tent and it looks like the U.N. in there.

Actually, Mr. Shyamalan, I’m still part of the camp that expected minority representation in the live action adaptation of Avatar because, well, most of the folklore the series was inspired by was not White American. It’s unfortunate that the Avatar microcosm is about as diverse as the “world” in Wall-E.

Via Racebending – The Last Airbender – M. Night Shyamalan Speaks – UGO.com.