Avatar: The Last Airbender
| STUB | This article is a stub. Please help us out by expanding or adding to it. |
| Name: | Avatar: The Last Airbender |
| Abbreviation(s): | ATLA, A:TLA |
| Creator: | Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko |
| Date(s): | February 21, 2005 – July 19, 2008 |
| Medium: | cartoon |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | official site, wikipedia, IMDB profile |
|
Subpages for Avatar: The Last Airbender: Click here for other articles related to this fandom on Fanlore. | |
Avatar: the Last Airbender is an American animated series that takes place in a world where four elements (water, air, earth, fire) govern all magic ("bending"). The plot concerns Katara and her older brother Sokka, who discover a boy frozen in polar ice. This boy, Aang, is the last (and lost) Avatar, a title that describes his superior connection to all four bending elements. The three children embark on adventures to stop the imperial expansion of the Fire Nation and bring peace to all the nations on the map.
Contents |
The Fandom
A signature feature of the show is its animal species, almost all of which are hybrids of real-world animals, like ostrich-horses. Appa, Aang's steed and companion, is a six-legged flying buffalo; it is never explained where he gets the six legs from. His other animal companion is a flying lemur named Momo.
Appa is a source of great affection within the fandom, and he and Momo are the only characters from the show who got made into plush stuffed animals.
Ships
Almost all of the pairings in this fandom are referred to in portmanteau format. Hence, Zuko/Katara is called Zutara, and its fans Zutarians. The funny permutations of name-squishes are not to be underestimated.
The creators, often referred to in the fandom by the portmanteau Bryke (Bryan + Mike), have a reputation for actively teasing the shippers. In an Avatar edition of Nick Mag Presents magazine, to help explain ships, they included a heart that said Momo + Appa = Moppa[1].
Fan communities
Many Avatar fans are on DeviantArt, so there are a number of clubs:
Some of the artists involved in the production also have DeviantArt pages, for example Giancarlo Volpe who worked as illustrator and director on the series[2], or the fan and storyboard artist Rufftoon, who also put up samples of their official Avatar work alongside with their unofficial fanart.[3]
There are also Avatar communities on LJ:
- avatar_fans (general discussion)
- atla_press (newsletter)
Fanart:
Multimedia & Vids:
Icons:
Crafts:
Cosplay:
Fanfic:
Stamping:
Protest against the casting for the live action movie
In December 2008, the first pictures of the proposed cast of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender" movie began to circulate. To the shock of many fans, the four main characters were all slated to be played by white actors. [4] [5]
The fandom erupted as some fans raged over the whitewashing of Avatar's Asian and Inuit-influenced world, while others saw little problem with the casting of white actors [6] [7] Fans against the whitewashing of Avatar began to organize: Aang Ain't White began a letter writing campaign; the Racebending community was founded on Livejournal to discuss the upcoming movie and related race fail, as was Racebending.com.
Professionals associated with the movie helped to build fan outrage with culturally insensitive remarks. The open audition for Aang called for "male actors 12-15 years old, Caucasian or any other ethnicity." [8] Casting director Deedee Rickets advised prospective extras to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire: "If you're Korean, wear a kimono. If you're from Belgium, wear lederhosen." [9] In February 2009, Jesse McCartney, previously cast as Zuko, withdrew from "The Last Airbender." He was replaced by Dev Patel, an Indian actor. [10] While a step in the right direction, fans of the series still weren't satisfied: the one actor of colour was to play the movie's villain; Patel is Indian, while the Fire Nation is based on Chinese culture; casting Patel was little more than tokenism aimed at quieting the controversy surrounding the movie. [11]
(More from glockgal)
Resources
References
- ↑ Nick Mag Presents, Winter 2006 (September 2006), issue 18, page 40.
- ↑ Giancarlo Volpe's DeviantArt page
- ↑ Rufftoon's DeviantArt page
- ↑ First Look: The Cast of The Last Airbender. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ Casting for the Avatar movie. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ See, for example, the Avatar Racefail Bingo Card. Avatar Racefail Bingo and Discussion Roundup. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ http://glockgal.livejournal.com/375625.html Avatar: The Last Airbender. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ The Last Airbender - Open Casting? (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ Lisa Zhu, A 'last' straw for ignorance. (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ Shyamalan cast floats on 'Air' (Accessed May 20, 2009)
- ↑ A first step in the right direction. . . but we have a long way to go! (Accessed May 20, 2009)
