#brown skin indigenous folk do exist brown skin actors are there ready and waiting pls stop acting like they’re not

[lesbow]

While the teaser trailer for the live action looks fantastic and the stills released on Twitter look amazing (APPA LOOKS SO GOOD!!!), I just cannot and don’t think I ever will get over Katara and Sokka having immensely lighter skin compared to their animated originals.

I’m not gonna go into the Ian Ousley Situation™️, but just wanted to speak on the colorist choice to cast paler indigenous actors for darker skin roles. This is no hate to the kids, but indigenous peoples (including Asian-based communities) with brown/darker skin do exist and it’s unfortunate that both live action adaptations fail to acknowledge them.

And before my notifications start getting spammed with that SAME picture of Kiawentiio sitting under the warmest toned lighting possible at a convention, the trailer and released stills have now shown us what they will look like in the actual show. Regardless of lighting, Katara and Sokka were very visibly brown and darker than Aang and Zuko in the original show. Not simply one shade tanner, but brown and this is an important distinction.

I make this post just as a reminder that while the trailer looks promising, and it’s good actual Asian and Indigenous actors were cast (mostly), colorism is still a very real problem that shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed.