Controversy hangs like a storm cloud over the release of M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, The Last Airbender, which is released in theatres on Thursday, July 1.

The live-action film is based on a popular Nickelodeon animation series that draws heavily from Pacific Asian and Inuit culture, and features Chinese calligraphy, igloos, and dark skintones. Fans have called for a boycott, accusing the film of “whitewashing” the cast, putting mainly Caucasian actors in the lead roles and actors of colour (including Slumdog Millionaire”˜s Dev Patel) in largely antagonist roles.

Loraine Sammy, a Vancouver-based fan, feels that the movie undercuts the original animated show’s progressive portrayal of visible minorities by reverting to conventional casting choices.

“Every time you see characters in a movie, the white characters are good guys, the dark ones are bad,” she said by phone. Sammy, who is of Trinidadian descent, said she “laughed off” such casting in the past, but was angered by the omission of ethnic actors in what she felt was essentially an Asian show. “With Airbender, I thought, we’re finally to get to see some Asian protagonists on the big screen, but when the cast was announced, it felt like, ”˜We’re back to square one.' "

In December 2008, Sammy and other fans began a letter-writing campaign asking Paramount Pictures to recast the movie, setting up a blog to record the group’s activities. As the movement grew, Sammy and Los Angeles–based fan Marissa Minna Lee broadened the site in March 2009 to its current form, Racebending.com, an online community which takes aim not only at Airbender’s casting, but at inaccurate ethnic casting in the film industry as a whole. The group, which currently counts about 7600 members in 55 countries on Facebook, has been covered by the BBC and CBC, drawing much negative publicity to the movie.

Some, however, feel that Racebending.com is overreacting. Industry professionals point out that movies tend to cast the best actors, rather than those who physically resemble their characters. “I think for the most part, they’re looking at the person who can do the jobs best, and the person who can sell the most products,” Kirsten Clarkson, a veteran casting director and founder of Vancouver acting school Schoolcreative, said by phone.”If you can’t find an Asian kid whose soul matches the role...you have to go with the kid who matches.”

Being of mixed Chinese, Caucasian, and First Nations heritage herself, Clarkson says she is interested in seeing more diversity in movies, and has helped launch the careers of actors such as Indo-Canadian actor Avan Jogia and First Nations actor Carsen Gray. She says that many directors practice blindcasting, without considering an actor’s ethnicity. “People in the industry are pretty open-minded. They don’t look at race unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Toronto-based filmmaker and writer David Eng, however, feels that this was one of those films where race should have been considered. “There are so few opportunities for Asians in particular, minorities in general,” he said by phone. “There are a few examples of it done right. Clint Eastwood went out of his way to cast Hmong actors in Gran Torino, so there’s no excuse not to make that effort.”

Sammy agrees, and said that many of the show’s younger fans have been confused as to why some of their favourite characters seemed to have changed ethnicity in the movie version of Airbender. “We can’t all pretend to be colourblind when the world is not colourblind.”