M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is the most hated movie in America, and this is where America gets it wrong.

First of all, any talk of this movie being racist because of the lack of Asian actors in the leading roles is absurd.  As someone who is said to be hypersensitive about history and race, I will say that the casting for this movie was not racist.  Yes, the movie was adapted from a cartoon (Avatar: The Last Airbender) that was drawn in a Japanese style of animation, and yes, I suppose that some of the characters in the cartoon had an “Asian-look” to them.  I will also concede that Asian philosophy, martial arts, and lettering and symbols prevailed throughout the cartoon.  I will admit that there was an overall “Asian” feel to the cartoon.

However, this movie isn’t chronicling the ancient history of Earth, nor is it telling a story based on any historical period on Earth.  If any of these were the case, specific attention to race would be appropriate during casting.  Rather, this movie is adapting a cartoon that portrayed a fantasy world that is completely different from our own.  The characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender weren’t Asian, white, black, or Indian, even though they may have looked like it.  They were Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.  And just because Eastern philosophy heavily influenced the animated series, it still doesn’t mean that the characters were Asian.  People who make this argument are basically saying that aliens in science fiction stories who act “Asian” should look Asian.  This just sounds silly.  I mean, George Lucas borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy when he formulated the Jedi code, but no one cared that he didn’t cast a Japanese shogun to play Yoda.

While they could have casted Asian actors for the cartoon characters who looked Asian, they didn’t really have to because it would have made no difference to the story whatsoever (and not casting Asians doesn’t take anything away from Asian people or culture).  This is not an issue of “yellowface” (in which Asian characters are being portrayed by non-Asians), as some people have said.  People who complain about “yellowface” are just saying that “Japanese people should be the Fire Nation.”  Who’s the racist now?

It’s not like there weren’t any Asians in the film, too.  There were many Earthbenders who were Asian, and since the Earth Kingdom figures prominently in the second season of Avatar, there will likely be a bunch of Asians in the sequel film (if it’s made).  The truth is that the movie was intelligently casted and could go down as one of the most diversely casted films in recent history.  The four different nations are somewhat distinct from each other, and Aang, the Avatar, is brilliantly casted with an ethnic-neutral-looking Noah Ringer.  People who complain about the casting being racist don’t realize what the fundamental theme of the original series is:  Diversity.

Other than the race issue, the movie also takes criticism for its bad acting.  People have said that the acting is horrible, the dialogue was forced, and the character interactions were unbelievable.  This is probably true, but the acting is no better or worse than other popular science-fiction /fantasy movies, including Star Wars and Star Trek.  I realize that this may be difficult for some people to accept, but they need to realize that they were likely children when they saw Star Wars for the first time.  When we’re kids, we automatically like any movie our parents take us to see in the theaters.  The reasons why we like Star Wars today are 40% substance and 60% nostalgia.  People hate The Last Airbender for the same reason why people hated The Phantom Menace:  There’s nothing to be nostalgic for.  Nostalgia trumps all reason.  By all technical accounts, Michael Bay’s 2007 film Transformers was a bad movie.  The bad acting and brainless plot was simply a vehicle to deliver big explosions and special effects.  Yet, most people who saw it loved it because they got to see Optimus Prime again, whom they haven’t seen since 1985.  If Transformers (the movie) came out in 1985, I doubt it would be as loved as it was in 2007 because it would have to compete with the cartoon.  If The Last Airbender was released in 2025, it would probably be better received.

Also keep in mind that The Last Airbender (and Star Wars) is a children’s movie, no matter how many cosplaying adults at AnimExpo refute that claim.  Yes, the acting and dialogue was bad and corny, but when Princess Yue said, “We believe in our beliefs just as much as they believe in their beliefs,” that was no more preposterous and contrived than when Obi-Wan Kenobi first said, “May the Force be with you.”  You know this to be true (as Yoda would say).

Now, to be fair to all the haters, the anime purists probably have the biggest gripe with the movie.  They feel that the movie’s plot wasn’t completely true to the story in the series.   They say that too many creative liberties were taken to condense the ten hour anime series (Season 1) into a ninety-minute motion picture.   The end result was that the movie was a failed adaption of the original series in every aspect imaginable:  The story was tweaked, it didn’t capture the mythology, the character development was nonexistent, and the overall spirit of the show was sucked out of it.  All of this they blame squarely on the writer, producer, and director, all of whom are M. Night Shyamalan.

Shyamalan was probably the last person anyone would have suspected to helm The Last Airbender.  Best known for the highly thought-provoking psycho-drama The Sixth Sense (which starred Bruce Willis and a sober Haley Joel Osment), Shyamalan’s movies have mostly been psychological thrillers about ghosts, aliens, ladies in water, happenings, and spooky villages.  As such, Shyamalan is particularly popular with college students, heroin addicts, and wiccans.  But ever since the critically-acclaimed The Sixth Sense was released eleven years ago, his movies have received increasingly negative criticism.  His style of having “twist endings” has been said to have gotten old, and he’s been labeled as a one-trick pony.  Has Shyamalan, who was considered a genius filmmaker in1999, progressively gotten worse?  Is he only good for making psycho-thrillers, and if so, is The Last Airbender his attempt to shed that stigma? 

These may be questions that Jason Hartley might want to answer.  In his book The Advanced Genius Theory, Hartley postulates that artistic geniuses will always be geniuses, even if their later works aren’t as likeable as their earlier, more popular stuff.  Using Bob Dylan and Lou Reed as prime examples, he theorizes that they are not as popular today not because their new music sucks, but because their genius has advanced beyond what most people can appreciate.   Rather than concede that artistic genius fades over time, Hartley proposes that artists become more brilliant as time goes on and that the general public aren’t as Advanced.  While mostly everyone loved The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan’s most recent films have been slammed by critics and generally audiences alike.  But did he all of a sudden start sucking, or did we all of a sudden just not understand him?  Hartley’s Theory might be true, or it might just be a way to justify liking shitty stuff. 

It might take a certain level of humility to like The Last Airbender.  So, if you didn’t like the movie, the problem might be you.

I have a friend who is ridiculously pregnant.  As I am typing this, she is several days past her due date.  As such, whenever we speak to each other, it is unavoidable that we will talk about pregnancy and baby stuff.  (She is literally the elephant in the room.)  Of course, one time the topic of baby names came up and I found myself Googling “popular baby names” for the past several years.  As it turned out, there is a page on the website for the Social Security Administration that lists, by year, the most popular baby names in the United States.  It also allows you to search the popularity of a name by year, going as far back to the 1800s.  After predictably searching for unpredictable names like “Barack,” “Sanjaya,” and “Brody Jenner,” I searched for an assumedly common name:  Britney.  My search turned up something peculiar about “Britney.”  In 1998, “Britney” was the 452^nd most popular baby girl name, but in 1999, its popularity jumped to 205.  I hypothesized that this was due to the popularity of Britney Spears, who released her first album …Baby One More Time in 1999.  However, I did concede that this could have merely been a coincidence.  To prove (or disprove) my hypothesis, I searched for the name of another female pop singer, who rose to fame in 2006 with her breakthrough role in the Disney Channel’s original series Hannah Montana.  Prior to 2007, the name “Miley” (as in Miley Cyrus) had never been in the top 1000 baby girl names for any given year.  In 2007, “Miley” was ranked 278.  (Furthermore, the most popular name today for a newborn boy is “Jacob”, the most popular name for a newborn girl is “Isabella,” and the most popular movie franchise of the past two years releases its third film, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, this week.)  All of this struck me as dangerously revealing.   This Baby Name Phenomenon has led me to conclude two things:  1. Fans of teenage icons like to procreate at the heights of their icons’ careers and 2. Americans are easily influenced by what they’re exposed to.  I’ve realized that this second point explains everything from baby names to Americans’ feelings toward soccer.

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably American.  And if you’re American, then you probably couldn’t care less about soccer because soccer is not popular in America, despite the fact that it’s the most popular sport in the world.  The reasons for this are multiple.  Americans have seemingly formulated every excuse to justify their dislike for the sport.  People have said that it’s boring.  People say that it takes too long for a team to score, and too many games end in a tie (or “draw” as “football” people say).  People have complained about the wimpiness of the players, who are known to dramatically drop to the ground in agonizing pain whenever someone steps on their shoelace.  And, people have charged that soccer is a foreign sport that simply doesn’t appeal to American tastes and sensibilities, and some conservative pundits have even alleged that soccer is un-American. 

Nevertheless, every four years when the World Cup comes around discussions begin on whether this will be the year that soccer finally breaks through and becomes a popular sport in America.  And, again, the answer this time around will be “no,” but it’s not because Americans think that watching flimsy foreign people run around a big green lawn is boring.  Just like anything with widespread recognition, soccer’s popularity comes down to exposure, and soccer will never be popular in America as long as American’s aren’t exposed to it.  Unlike the other major American sports, Major League Soccer does not have a lucrative network television deal that would bring the game into the homes of every American citizen.  The NFL (Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN), NBA (ESPN and TNT), and Major League Baseball (Fox and ESPN) all have network deals that broadcast their regular season and playoff games.  These sports are highly exposed.  So why don’t the networks strike a deal with soccer?  Like most things in life, it comes down to money.

Soccer simply doesn’t make money for television networks.  It’s is a game that’s played on a continuous clock that doesn’t stop; one half of soccer runs for a minimum of forty-five continuous minutes.  The clock continues to run during time-outs, player substitutions, injuries, etc.  This means that there are no breaks in the game for television commercials, which is where all TV revenue comes from.  In football, broadcasted games cut to commercials for time-outs, change of possessions, player injuries, two-minute warnings, and end of quarters.  There are even time-outs during the game for no purpose other than to let the networks show commercials (these are called “TV Time-outs”).  In baseball, there are commercials between every half-inning and pitcher substitutions.  In basketball, there are commercials between quarters, for every full time-out, (sometimes) between free throws, and whenever Ron Artest punches out a fan.  In soccer, the only opportunity to show commercials during a game is at halftime.  It doesn’t make financial sense for a network to sign a significant broadcast deal with MLS.  (To a lesser extent, this is also why hockey doesn’t gain as much traction as football, basketball, and baseball.)  If the networks figured out a way to make soccer lucrative, we’d see soccer every day, we’d be cheering for our local MLS teams every year, and we’d be apoplectic about Team USA getting punked by Ghana every four years.

Americans don’t hate soccer.  We only think we do.  We need to realize that by “hating” soccer, we’re not being “tough.”  By snubbing soccer, we aren’t being particular about sports, and we’re certainly not being more “American.”  We’re just being a byproduct of the television networks’ balance sheets.  Americans are victims of exposure, and we’ve literally gone so far as to name our children after it.  Even if you adamantly insist that you genuinely hate that foreign sport, I insist that you’d like it if it was on every Sunday night on NBC, every Monday night on ESPN, or every Saturday afternoon on Fox.  Because, just how you may insist that you hate teenage pop superstars, at some point in the last 2 years I guarantee you found yourself singing Party in the USA and I guarantee that you liked it.

Oops, I did it again.

I have a friend who is seemingly on the forefront of fashion, trends, and everything else that is (or will be) cool.  Meaning, if she discovers a new club or lounge in Hollywood, it will surely be the most popular nightclub in a few weeks.  If she’s listening to Iglu & Hartly in May, everyone will be listening to them in September.  She is so advanced that she introduced me to music from the Blue Scholars before most people knew that people lived in the Pacific Northwest.  So, three years ago when she instant messaged me and told me to join a new social networking website, I didn’t hesitate to sign up.  She described this site as “the next huge thing on the internet.”  After joining the site, I was not particularly overwhelmed.  Actually, I was kind of pissed off.  There were no pictures and nothing substantial to read.  Absolutely no one I knew (other than my friend) was on this site, and the few people that were on the site posted unimportant and useless information like “I’m going to take a bath.”  I saw absolutely no redeeming qualities with this website.  I asked myself, “What the fuck is this site good for?” and I immediately deleted my account.

Since then, that site has become the hugest thing on the internet.

Shamelessly, I jumped (back) on the bandwagon a little over six months ago and I am now, once again, an active member of Twitter (@manilajones).  I suppose I now understand how to use Twitter.  Clearly, it’s a service that lets people tell friends and strangers what they’re doing and/or what they’re thinking about.  I suspect that most people on Twitter utilize the service to stay current with people they find fascinating (in my case, BPGlobalPR and Tom Leykis).  But who are these fascinating people that everyone seems to gravitate to?

From my observation, you can divide hardcore Twitter enthusiasts (people with lots of followers) into two groups of people:  Famous people and non-famous people.  Obviously, famous people will have lots of followers because they are genuinely famous (rock stars, politicians, thespians, priests, etc.).  There is nothing that they can do about the magnitude of their following.  While the famous people like to use Twitter as a public relations tool to promote their next movie, album, public appearance, etc., they mostly use it talk about the trivialities of their lives.  They use Twitter to convey to the public that they do regular things, like eat lunch at Tito’s Tacos, walk their dogs at Venice Beach, and make uninspired statements about philosophy.  Even though their tweets are absurdly boring, they’re absolutely riveting to their fans.  They use Twitter to prove that they’re normal.  They want to be non-famous, even though they’re not.

Now, you may have come across a Twitter profile with over 5,000 followers of someone you’ve never heard of and asked yourself why this person was popular.  This person was likely “non-famous.”  They have no fame outside of the Twitterverse (or other internet vectors that allows for status updates).  Non-famous people have a lot of followers because they actively seek to gain followers.  These “Twitterlebrities” are dorks who spend all day trying to formulate witty one-liners that only they think are clever.  (As opposed to bloggers, who seemingly spend their existence searching for epiphanies and transcribing them into copious amounts of text.)  They want to be famous, even though they are not.

While I’m still asking myself, “What the fuck is this site good for?” it is not in the same pompous manner that I did a few years ago.  I’m genuinely searching for Twitter’s fundamental redeeming quality.  Ultimately, it may be that people (famous and non-famous) do not use Twitter to be themselves inasmuch as they use it to recreate themselves.  Whether you’re a famous person trying to break out of character, or a non-famous person trying to create a character, we’re going to figure this damn Twitter thing out.

And we’ll do it 140 characters at a time.

Twitter is full of a bunch of dorks with no lives who spend all day trying to come up with witty one-liners that only they think are clever.

My right arm has been hurting lately, and I know exactly why.  I have a laptop computer and I’m too lazy to get a mouse for it.  For the few hours each day that I am on the computer, my right hand hovers over my computer’s touchpad.  The constant clicking with the index finger and the motions of the middle finger have worn out my entire right arm.  I’ve tried using my left hand, and I’ve failed miserably.  No matter how hard I try, the fingers on my left hand will never master the skill of using the touchpad mouse.  Left-handed people amaze me.  Furthermore, I cannot comprehend people who can simultaneously use all four limbs.  I’m baffled by people who can drive manual transmission; I’m entranced by people who can peel bananas with their feet.   I suppose that is why drummers fascinate me.  As I’m typing this, I’m watching Paramore’s video for “Misery Business” and I can’t help but marvel as the drummer pounds away at his drums like a crazed lunatic.  As an exclusively right-handed individual, I am completely mesmerized by the fact that drummers use all four of their limbs simultaneously, with each limb doing something completely independent of the others.  I equate this talent with the ability to write with both hands simultaneously, which is probably exaggerated (and/or erroneous).  In any case, such talent probably requires full use of both hemispheres of the brain, which ultimately depresses me.  Apparently, my motor skills are confined to the neurological capacity of my left frontal lobe.

The name of Paramore’s wacky drummer is Zac Farro.  I know this because I read the liner notes to their album “All We Know is Falling”.  In this age of digital music, iTunes, and file sharing, I’ll admit that I’m part of the dying breed of people who still buys music CDs.  (I don’t have anything at all against downloading music or file sharing because I don’t believe it’s a crime to listen to music.  I don’t think anyone should have to pay to listen to music.  However, I do believe that one should pay to own a CD, and considering that I like to collect CDs as a hobby, I have no problem with paying money to expand my collection.)  I like to collect CDs because I like reading the booklets that come with them.  I like reading the lyrics to Michelle Branch’s “Everywhere” because I like trying to figure out if she is singing about her boyfriend or God.  I like reading the song credits to Colbie Caillat’s album “Coco” because I like being assured that she is a legitimate singer/songwriter.  I like flipping through the booklet for My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade” because I like marveling at Gerard Way’s awesome artwork.  I like wondering why the hell a ram is pictured all over the place in The Killers’ “Sam’s Town”.  I’m certain that I could find all this stuff in magazines and Wikipedia, but there’s something intangible about a CD package that makes the artist seem genuinely artistic.  It’s part of who they are.

But in any case, I like reading the acknowledgments of the artist the most.   I like reading Dr. Dre shout out to his friends.  I like reading KRS-One teach us about how we’re all wrong.  I like reading Lauryn Hill make a cheap shot to Wyclef, and I like reading 2Pac threaten to kill people.  I like reading Christina Aguilera acknowledge all her writers and producers, and I like reading Avril Lavigne not do the same.  I like reading KT Tunstall’s chicken scratch on the booklet to “Eye on the Telescope”, and although I cannot decipher her writing, I’m sure she is acknowledging wonderful people.  I like reading the hundreds of artists who thank the same God, and I like reading the few artists who thank hundreds of gods.  I like reading what these singers have to say.  I like reading what inspires them.

I wish I had my own liner notes.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a bone of talent in my body.  I am not musically inclined, and I will never release a CD on any given Tuesday.  I will never have my own liner notes.  But if I did, I suppose I would acknowledge what inspires me, and I suppose I have been doing as such for quite a while now.  I guess I could continue to write about that right now, but honestly I’ve been a little uninspired lately.  Sadly, the only thing I could write about right now is ambidexterity.  I used to be able to write about anything and everything at a lightning-fast pace, but I’m not able to anymore.  My inspiration has always been depression, anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction.  The fact that I have writer’s block has forced me to reassess what inspires me and confront a wholly new reality…

I’m getting married!

Last night I found myself watching TV and switching between two “sport” “events.”  On ABC was the National Spelling Bee, which over the past several years has inexplicably become one of America’s premier television events.   Watching adolescent Indian Americans battle each other for spelling supremacy makes for riveting network television, I suppose, and last night millions of people witnessed Anamika Veeramani from Cleveland, Ohio correctly spell “stromuhr” (a word my word processor insists does not exist) for the spelling championship.

On CNN was Larry King and his exclusive interview with basketball superstar LeBron James.  After several years with the Cleveland Cavaliers, “King James” is now a free agent.  After having accomplished nearly everything else in his seven-year NBA career, all accounts indicate that he’s looking to go to whichever team gives him the best chance to win a championship.

In other words, a 14-year old girl has done something LeBron James couldn’t do:  Bring a championship to Cleveland.

Every Friday I post ten songs from my iTunes playlist.  I realize that this will not be a very exciting reading experience for anyone, but it’s better than reading about an unplugged oil leak for the millionth time.  Maybe.

Ten songs from my playlist this week:

1. Franklin – Paramore
2. Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
3. Shower Me With Your Love – Surface
4. Love Makes Things Happen – Pebbles
5. Wrong Way – Sublime
6. The Story of My Old Man – Good Charlotte
7. No Sunlight – Death Cab for Cutie
8. Gettin’ Money – Junior Mafia
9. Flower – Liz Phair
10. When U Think About Me (Kamikaze Mix) – One Vo1ce

As an aside, today is my 33rd birthday.  There is nothing special about this birthday, other than the fact that I am likely going to live longer than Jesus.  Every birthday becomes more predictable after 25.  Until you hit 40, I suppose, which is when you can begin the countdown to your death.

I will be spending today working, and then having supper with my fiancee at a commercial teppanyaki restaurant.  She also baked me a highly advanced red velvet cake that is white.  It’s everything that I want.

It is a commonly thought among people who know me that I know a lot about popular music.  This may or may not be true.  I suppose there are things that may indicate that I am a pop music guru.  It is true that I have an enormous CD collection, an iPod filled with over 10,000 songs (more or less), and a subscription to Rolling Stone.  Sometimes, I even read Blender!  However, it is also true that I do not know the difference between the Beatles and the Monkees.  I don’t know if they are two distinct bands or one band with two names.  I do know that at one point one of them had a television show and one of them is slightly overrated, but I cannot tell you who the hell “Ringo Jones” is, or if he even exists.

Whether I know a lot about pop music or not is not as important as the perception that I know a lot about it.  This is true for a lot of aspects of life, but especially in the pretentious world of music.  Being that modern music is the soundtrack to our lives, it is thought that anyone with vast knowledge of this must have some sort of revolutionary insight into the meaning of existence.

Also, it makes you seem cool in front of your friends when you can say you’ve heard of Cage the Elephant.

Whenever you’re given a chance to sound smart, you should always take it.  Whenever someone asks you about an artist or band that you’ve never heard of, always reply with, “I like anything except their new stuff.”  This is an idiotic statement, but this statement will get you respect 90% of the time because it implies that 1) you’ve heard of them, 2) you’ve heard some of their stuff that few people have heard, and 3) it makes you appear to have eclectic taste.  You might be as clueless as a broken clock, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I don’t really know that much about music, I swear.

On every post on an “Ish” site, there is a widget labeled “Related Posts” which links the reader to other posts on that blog.  Of course, the purpose of the widget is to drive more traffic to some of the blog’s older posts.  I tried to add this widget using Themes, but the current Module menu doesn’t have this feature.  I looked it up in the Xanga Help section.  There were a couple of inquiries about this issue, but no one seemed interested in offering a solution.

I dismissed this feature as something that only the “Ish” sites were able to have, but then I noticed that TheTheologiansCafe had this widget.  In a private message, I asked him how he did this.  He replied that Xanga added it for him.  I private messaged Xanga and asked if I could get that feature, and they denied my request.

I’m a non-white, liberal-leaning, 6’1″, non-religious, single (well, engaged) Lifetime Premium member of this site.  What are your thoughts on this?

In-N-Out Burger is apparently set to open restaurants in Texas.  This has outraged many Double-Double enthusiasts in southern California, who feel that their beloved hamburger franchise is selling out their southern California identity for money.  How a for-profit business can “sell-out” is beyond me.  If In-N-Out  feels that they can be successful in Dallas/Ft. Worth, then it wouldn’t make sense not to expand to Texas.  And, maybe Texas is a better fit for In-N-Out than California.  I mean, hamburgers are made of beef, and lots of beef comes from Texas.  Hamburgers make you fat, and everything is bigger in Texas.  Furthermore, In-N-Out products are wrapped in paper with Bible verses printed on them, which probably makes it more appropriate for the Bible belt that is Texas than the debauchery that is California.   

¹And, in two hundred years, we can tell our kids that the ²Founding Fathers created In-N-Out in Dillon, Texas with the ³inspiration of the Lord and that ⁴In-N-Out was a Christian institution founded on Christian values, and ⁵that’s how it always was and always will be, ⁶“Baldwin Park, California” be damned.

manilajones 6:1-6