Happy blaaarrrg

So we just came back from a few days at a 5 star resort paid for by Cam's work. This was very nice :)
But as you might expect I feel pretty drained (in a fairly happy "I had a very busy few days" sort of way) so do not expect much responding to email/posts etc.

Will try to write it up a bit later. For now I can't even get the couple of photos I took off my phone :( (and again, Cam is asleep. I may have chronic fatigue, but he was up late carousing with workmates :))

Whitewashing = Argh

I am So Sick of the way hollywood hollywoodises stories, taking out anything unusual or interesting and making it all bland and same-y. And what I am most, angrily sick of is white washing.

First we have Earthsea.
And then 21.
And now Avatar.

A short synopsis of how the usual excuses are wrong.

The one that most often annoys me is "But they just cast the best people for the part and they happened to be white." Would these people feel the same way if a story about white people was cast all with non-white people? Would the Harry Potter films be an ok adaptation if the main characters were all black(*)? Or played by 50 year olds? Even if they were really good actors? You cast a role like that with certain prerequisites in mind, and in all three of these cases the ethnicities of the characters was important. You shouldn't even be auditioning white people.

If you make a conscious decision to do colourblind casting (which is, imo, a valid choice for certain stories. But not these ones) then statistically,you would very rarely end up with all-white major characters, and you'd get non-white protagonists a hell of a lot more often than we do. (In america, about 1 in 9)

Anyway, to wash the taste out of your brain, Someone makes some better casting suggestions for Avatar. Those are some pretty people :)

All this discussion is making me want to get around to watching Avatar (the tv series!) properly, I've seen a few episodes and thought it was ok but never really got into it.

(*)Actually, I was thinking about it, it would be interesting if Harry or Ron wasn't white, given they're from "old wizarding families" (is it ever said they're old english families?) Hermione not being white is too obvious. So a better example is Pride and Prejudice: I liked "Bride and Prejudice" but it certainly wasn't strictly accurate to the characters as written :)

A weekend in Bunker Bay

I and Cam just spent the weekend at Quay West Bunker Bay Resort. It was nice, if not worth whatever absurd price his company paid for the accommodation (we ended up spending enough just on incidentals like breakfast¹)

Cam has put the photos up.
( some highlights )