For my project I decided to tackle the issue of ethical issues of fair use. The way in which I am portraying this issue is by looking at the work that director M. Night Shyamalan did in his remake of popular cartoon series, Avatar the Last Airbender. When looking at the original cartoon series, the show is a representation of an Asian influenced world where the creators of the series hired a cultural consultant and calligrapher to get the aspects of the culture correct. The components of the series derives elements of Chinese characters, martial arts and religions, mixed with the anime style animation and prominent Asian influences allowed the show to earn a spot on the Top 100 Animated TV Shows list at number 35. Where the creators of the series did everything right, Shyamalan did everything wrong, from the martial arts used to the casting of the characters. Shyamalan caused an uproar from fans, critics and the Asian community alike receiving awards for the Worst Film of 2010.
In class, we discussed examples of ethically mistreatment in the entertainment industry. For example, Lego’s toy and television series, Bionicle is derived the Maori culture. However, Lego was not considerate when it came to portraying their culture correctly. The Maori people tried to battle the misuse and representation of their culture but were overruled by the copyright laws that Lego had over the Bionicle brand (Lecture 4/3/2014). Another instance that we learned about in class was hip-hop group Outkast’s 2004 Navajo indian themed grammy performance, which included feathers and war painted and turned out to be a big misrepresentation of the indian culture (Lecture 4/10/2014). Both instances of unethical fair use has triggered negative responses in the communities. The same is true for M. Night Shyamalan’s film, The Last Airbender, where he casted actors of Caucasian and Middle Eastern descent to portray the Asian characters in the original series. Shyamalan’s defense for doing so included him stating he wanted to create the world’s most diverse film with an array of multicultural actors. However, the series itself was diverse in which no changes to how the culture should have been portrayed should have changed.
One of the points Jane Anderson makes in her lecture at The Library of Congress concerning indigenous cultures and their anxiety of the recreation of their culture, was that given the mass of collections of archived material is not how the people of the culture from which it was derived may have not wanted it to be portrayed. “The second anxiety rises precisely in poignantly because these enormous collections that had been amassed are not how indigenous people would have chosen to represent themselves. Indigenous peoples were not informed that this material was produced and used to fit them into a very specific vision of the world that reduced their cultural practices and justified the dispossession of their lands, resources and cultures” (Anderson). The corporations or individuals that turn the intangible aspects of ones culture into something tangible have the copyrights to that creation, notes Anderson, meaning the original authors of the intangible do have any authority of the created materials (Anderson). The casting of characters from a non-Asian descent proved Anderson’s point because the critical response of the Asian community made it clear the sheer dislike of the casting of the films characters, however they had no control and could not gain control to change the casting or other aspects of the movie to their liking. Shyamalan, having rights to recreate the series into a movie, did whatever he saw fit for his vision for both the series and the movie; the personalities of the characters, the martial arts, names of the characters and much more were changed to fit his vision.
For the basis of my project, I decided to create different movie/comparison posters featuring the original cartoon character, the casted movie character and a custom poster to more accurately portray the cartoon character. In doing so, I wanted to emphasize that corporations, directors, and other individuals will gain copyrights to creations such as the film The Last Airbender and do with as they please without any ethical consideration for not only the fans of the content but the community of where culture was the inspiration for the creation. The creators of the cartoon series provided a framework of a proper ethical use of culture. However, when the movie was created the director took the framework and remediated a project of his own vision rather than being considerate of the fans of the series, the community of which the series was derived from and the handwork of the original creators as well. In other words, I remixed the movie posters to replicate the drastic changes Shyamalan did in his rendition of The Last Airbender to show how copyright laws and ethical issues can stir up controversy but also show not much can be done about it.
Link to full paper with citations page:
https://www.icloud.com/iw/#pages/BALUI18Wu6zDz0AnuTqB4YP0wp5YQOAjyE2F/DTC_356_FINAL_PROJECT_JUSTIFICATION_PAPER
