I am from a refugee family and my parents moved from India to the United States to find better opportunities. Rather, I stand by my opinion that it is the job of privileged groups to boost the voices and platforms of marginalized groups.Īs such, I conducted an interview with Lhamo, a Tibetan American activist, regarding her thoughts on Tibetan representation in Avatar: The Last Airbender TV show and ways we can educate ourselves about Tibet and how to support its independence. Although I knew of the issues regarding the Avatar allegories to the Tibetan genocide in my previous article, I did not feel I was in a position to speak on behalf of Tibetan people. Moreover, some of the events in the show mirror real horrors marginalized groups have faced, such as the Air Nomad genocide reflecting the Tibetan genocide at the hands of China.Īs a Han Chinese American (by way of Taiwan and Vietnam), I’m in a position where I have faced racism and colonization while simultaneously benefitting from my own people’s imperialism on countries and ethnic groups across Asia. In particular, I voiced my concerns with the bastardization of Asian cultures to serve a white audience and its reductionist stance on colonialism, portraying it as extremism on “both sides.” This especially does a disservice to real people whose cultures the show is based on, as it presents a narrative that places them at fault for their ongoing oppression. I briefly addressed the issue of Orientalism in Avatar in my previous blog post about Asian representation in animation and its depiction of a colonial nation through a Western lens.

The latter response raises the pressing topic of Asian Americans exercising creative control over representation of their own cultures, and slightly acknowledges the long-running concerns of white showrunners creating an Asian fantasyland. Many fans of the original Avatar show voiced their frustrations with Netflix for refusing to adhere to the original showrunners’ creative decisions, and others hoped an Asian American crew would take over the project. The news of Bryke leaving the Avatar: the Last Airbender Netflix project in August received mixed responses across social media.

Avatar the last airbender test