When I was a kid, it was always a little sad that none of the shows I watched had people who looked like me. It’s a bit silly, I guess, but since I had my face constantly rubbed into the fact that I was brown, I just wanted one stinkin’ show where I could identify in that superficial way with a main character. (Captain Planet doesn’t count.)

Then I grew up and…well, I watched anime, which probably has a grand spanking total of ten non-white characters. I read vampire novels, and someone told me I couldn’t be a vampire for Halloween because I wasn’t pale. And so on.

Fast forward to now: I recently got into Avatar: the Last Airbender which is an absolutely fantastic show set in an "Asian-influenced fantasy world", as I think Wiki puts it. I mean, there were Chinese and Japanese clothing, art, and history, Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophies, architecture and calligraphy from different countries – it was kinda cool recognizing the where different things in the show came from. The writers did a brilliant job pulling from all sorts of sources to create this world, and my inner kid was totally gratified to see not one, not two, but an entire show of ethnic characters!

[If you haven’t watched it…watch it! I could go on for days about how good, how funny, how well written, how touching, and how flippin’ awesome it is. Days, I tell you.]   

Anyway, I found out a few days ago that they're making a movie adaptation, which was quite exciting to hear, and then I looked at the cast.

White. All white actors. One Indian actor who only got in on virtue of another actor having to withdraw because of scheduling conflicts.

Was it because by some misfortune, there were no qualified Asian actors? Well, let’s look at who they cast. One child actor cast off an internet audition. One guy who was in Twilight. One girl who has a stunning two poorly rated films to her name.  Oh, and Jesse McCartney (who ended up not being able to do it, so Dev Patel got his place).  

My heart just sank to my toes. Here was this fantastic show that actually featured ethnic characters, not as some token appearance but as main characters - a show that was successful and wildly popular even beyond its target audience - and the movie adaptation cast white actors in the main roles. My inner 9 year old was suddenly reminded that it did matter that she looked different from the other kids, and I, as an (almost) adult, was forced to acknowledge that we haven't really made as much progress with that pesky little  race issue as we'd like to think.

So, that's my rant of the day.  

Footnotes:

1 – The movie was probably doomed anyway with M. Night Shyamalan writing/directing/producing a live-action adaptation of a cartoon.
2 – The point of this was not “I hate whitey!”
3 - I was also annoyed when the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie arbitrarily made Ford Prefect into a black guy.

*courtesy of Devin* The girl needs a female sidekick who is less attractive and therefore has to be the comedic relief, and the dude needs a guy friend who is twice as horny as he is and brings out the worst in him at plot-appropriate moments.

Now just toss in some hilarious and unforeseen circumstances that force them to be around each other, like they have to work together, or they accidentally get married!

Use lots of humor revolving around the guy making sex jokes, because guys only think with their penises. Hahaha! There’s an example right there. But it would have been funnier if you used a crazy euphemism for it, like “their purple headed ship sinking sea serpents”. Also, girls are hard to please and love materialistic things, like purses and shoes. Guys and girls are so different from each other!

Remember, the more they bicker, the harder they fall for each other. Bickering is funny, and that’s why real-life couples engage in it so frequently to strengthen their relationships.  Eventually they end up together. Don’t worry about how logical it is; just make the sex really steamy. There should be some sort of complication that nearly prevents them from ending up together, but true love* conquers all!

*True love being here a sort of shallow attraction to someone you have known a short amount of time and cared about for an even shorter amount of time.

Ta da! Now go offer it up to the Hollywood Movie Machine, and I hope it eats you alive, you vapid, uncreative, stereotype spawning piece of shit.

Tune in next time for: Movies You Should See Instead of Generic RomComs.

Roast Turkey Baked with Aromatics

Citrus Honey-glazed Ham

Creamy Turkey Gravy

Spicy Mustard Stuffing and Traditional Herb Stuffing

Green Bean Casserole with Portabella Mushrooms and Breaded Onions

Sweet Corn Bread

Whipped Potatoes with Chives

Sweet Potatoes with Cinnamon Streusel Topping

Ginger and Orange Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Steamed Yellow Corn

Baked Apples Stuffed with Sugared Pecans

Pumpkin Pie with Praline Crust

They prescribed two types of medicine, one of which makes me overly sensitive to sunlight and one that makes me think at the speed of sound. Right now they have the combined effect of making me as twitchy as a weasel on crack.

“Why not sit down and write,” I asked myself. “writing is nice and calm, good mellow activity.” This has resulted in my frantic tapping on the keyboard, so I figured I might as well update this neglected journal.
 

With any luck, I'll be moving into an apartment in May, and with the apartment comes all the things I've been waiting for: a kitchen, a dishwasher, a real fridge...and a kitty! My roommate and I have been wanting a kitty since last year, and so we're pretty excited that it will be a reality soon. In preparation, I've been doing a lot of research - not just finding the right cat, but what to feed it, how to best take care of it, what it will need - and I've come across a bit of a theme of people declawing their cats.

Now you should (or already) know at this point that I fervently loathe PETA. I see nothing wrong with campaigning for animal rights, but I don't think they could go about it in a worse way. They are zealots, plain and simple. Somewhere in that warped logic of theirs, they mean well, but the road to hell is paved with such intentions.

I wanted to be fair about my assessment of declawing, so I looked at both sides of the argument. You will probably be able to tell which one I found less credible.

Other things I found:

-Do not type “kitten” into YouTube’s search bar. You will awake from the coma a few hours later and the doctor will warn you about overloading on cuteness.

-Vegetarian diets for cats. PETA can go fuck themselves.

-There is a shocking amount of information I do not know. This alarms me, both because I am now aware of my ignorance, and I think it means I’m not a teenager anymore. Worth further investigation.

Alright, people studying in the kitchen. I've had it.

The lounge down the hall - it's literally fifty feet away. It's usually empty and always quiet.  It has the exact same table that you're so fond of using in the kitchen, AND a multitude of couches, chairs, electrical outlets, ethernet connections, etc. It's MADE for you to study in it.

You're almost always from the first floor, meaning that rather than study in your own room, on the SAME FLOOR, you come to the kitchen.

In the beginning, I felt guilty and apologized for disrupting your study and forcing you out of the kitchen. Over time, I've stopped apologizing, because it's the goddamn kitchen, and that is its purpose. Since I stopped doling out the apologies, you give me all manner of dirty looks, make less than subtle comments about the inconvenience of relocating, sigh noisily, and shuffle your papers about to remind me that you're trying to study.       

That's fine, you can do that. Over time, I've developed a repertoire of noisy cooking techniques: I can chop vegetables with enough force to cut through the counter, run blenders and food processors to "make sure they're working", and bang around the heavy pots like I'm auditioning for Stomp!.

But I've run out of patience with you. I'm tired of having to work with only the 4 square feet of counter space because you have your computers and notes sprawled over the table while you chat on your cell phones. Either set up camp in the lounge, or move out when someone comes in to cook.

Otherwise, it's war, and I am the one with the big sharp knives.